Bioinformatics?

**Cannibalking** · January 30, 2011, 05:53 PM

I am in high school and Biology, Ecology, Genetic Engineering is all very interesting to me. If I was to pursue a career in biology which jobs would be a good idea?

Please help me out with names of careers involving biology and a short description. Also, a good university/college to go to if I chose that career?

Help me, Athenaem?

**Elfdude** · January 30, 2011, 06:57 PM

There's great science colleges all around the country. Each state should have at least one. A great place to start is your local state schools. As far as careers to go into, biology is useful in hundreds of thousands of fields. If you are up to the effort a double major in physics and biology will give you the pick of graduate schools as one discipline scientists are everywhere but scientists who can bridge the gaps between say biology and engineering are severely lacking. Most of the schools each have at least something they're famous for as well.

**lord o kelly** · January 30, 2011, 07:42 PM

check out these videos.

http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_vente...etic_life.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/gregory_sto..._is_human.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriqu...w_science.html

you can also just wander around TED as a website...
If you've never seen the website before it is lectures by really important people to other important(rich) people. I think ticket prices are like $5000 per day or something ridiculous. anyway its also made public, so may as well make use of it as a tool. -- Its not all biology either, so you can see things that cross all divides from biology to psychology to architecture to African poetry so its really an informative site if you would like to become a renaissance man.

**Cannibalking** · January 30, 2011, 08:45 PM

Originally Posted by lord o kelly

check out these videos.

http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_vente...etic_life.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/gregory_sto..._is_human.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriqu...w_science.html

you can also just wander around TED as a website...
If you've never seen the website before it is lectures by really important people to other important(rich) people. I think ticket prices are like $5000 per day or something ridiculous. anyway its also made public, so may as well make use of it as a tool. -- Its not all biology either, so you can see things that cross all divides from biology to psychology to architecture to African poetry so its really an informative site if you would like to become a renaissance man.

Cool man! Thanks for the links!

**conon394** · January 30, 2011, 10:30 PM

Except ignore just about anything Craig Venter say about science - he is a gas bag. But if you just want to be an ass and walk all over people and get rich he is a good model and he is admittedly really good at self PR. Well I guess that really goes for a lot academia (it not like Francis Collins is any different) - you can be a Sherpa or sled dog most of the time - both get used - but avoid being a sled dog they get eaten...

**Cannibalking** · January 30, 2011, 11:36 PM

Originally Posted by conon394

Except ignore just about anything Craig Venter say about science - he is a gas bag. But if you just want to be an ass and walk all over people and get rich he is a good model and he is admittedly really good at self PR. Well I guess that really goes for a lot academia (it not like Francis Collins is any different) - you can be a Sherpa or sled dog most of the time - both get used - but avoid being a sled dog they get eaten...

Uhhh, okay. I don't feel that helped me at all.

**Adar** · January 31, 2011, 03:39 AM

So are you interested in bioinformatics? It is a subfield where you use statistics and computational methods to solve issues in biology.

Molecular biology is a very wide area so it is probably a good idea to ask yourself what your most interested in (spend a day watching TED talks or wikipedia). Just decide an issue that you would be interested in solving and then select university and courses based on who's the best at it. I would say that there is a 90% chance that you will switch area of interest during your education (when I finished my education I had already been doing extracurricular work in bioinformatics, microbiology, defense against chemical weapons and business development) but it is always easier to study if you think you know what you will use it for.

Some specializations and wikipedia links, the Wikipedia article on biotechnology also provide a huge amount of subjects that might be interesting (read it here):

Bioinformatics

Microbiology

Synthetic biology

Systems biology

**Cannibalking** · January 31, 2011, 08:18 AM

Originally Posted by Adar

So are you interested in bioinformatics? It is a subfield where you use statistics and computational methods to solve issues in biology.

Molecular biology is a very wide area so it is probably a good idea to ask yourself what your most interested in (spend a day watching TED talks or wikipedia). Just decide an issue that you would be interested in solving and then select university and courses based on who's the best at it. I would say that there is a 90% chance that you will switch area of interest during your education (when I finished my education I had already been doing extracurricular work in bioinformatics, microbiology, defense against chemical weapons and business development) but it is always easier to study if you think you know what you will use it for.

Some specializations and wikipedia links, the Wikipedia article on biotechnology also provide a huge amount of subjects that might be interesting (read it here):

Bioinformatics

Microbiology

Synthetic biology

Systems biology

Thanks a lot!

**conon394** · January 31, 2011, 02:47 PM

Uhhh, okay. I don't feel that helped me at all

Because you I see you say are in High school and have never worked in the field so I'll try again... The example of Craig Venter should be very informative. Did he create synthetic life - nope. Did a team he financed and push a technical potential that was understood to reality yes. But he did not just hand some ideal over to that team and they made up something from a note pad, what was made was a variant of a hugely well understood organism and thus at the end of the day not all that impressive unless you are Craig Venter selling it to the media.

My point was Craig Venter is famous - anything he does is thus famous and easily sold as famous and will draw an unseemly amount of both acclaim and money but those that work for him might or might not so benefit and also risk the ire of those who dislike the man. Science can be be very ugly and kind of like High school. Just be aware that you can easily be used and abused by the powers that be easily (thus the sled dog thing) recall its Watson and Crick and not Watson Crick and Franklin... Its also more generally a field driven by personality if you are a student or friend or such of so and so you can quickly find a fair group of people or journals are not your friends, so go for it just have a thick skin and be aware of the personal politics.

**Cannibalking** · January 31, 2011, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by conon394

Because you I see you say are in High school and have never worked in the field so I'll try again... The example of Craig Venter should be very informative. Did he create sympathetic life - nope. Did a team he financed and push a technical potential that was understood to reality yes. But he did not just hand some ideal over to that team and they made up something from a note pad, what was made was a variant of a hugely well understood organism and thus at the end of the day not all that impressive unless you are Craig Venter selling it to the media.

My point was Craig Venter is famous - anything he does is thus famous and easily sold as famous and will draw an unseemly amount of both acclaim and money but those that work for him might or might not so benefit and also risk the ire of those who dislike the man. Science can be be very ugly and kind of like High school. Just be aware that you can easily be used and abused by the powers that be easily (thus the sled dog thing) recall its Watson and Crick and not Watson Crick and Franklin... Its also more generally a field driven my personality if you are do and so student friend or such you can quickly find a fair group of people or journals are not your friends, so go for it just have a thick skin and be aware of the personal politics.

I know what you're saying. Kind of like how when a celebrity gets a new friend it's really important just because they're famous? Get's publicity and recognition because of his popularity?

**conon394** · January 31, 2011, 05:33 PM

as always more than a few grammar issues now fixed -

Popularity true and that is one thing but its a bit more than that... A lot of Genetics and similar fields History, Plant breeding, Anthropology is very tight on who you know and what you do. It is not a problem unless you fail to understand that. Being the graduate student of X means you are never going to have any working relation with Y. Having this view Y means you really should not waste your time submitting to Journal X and if your are in the US and in the human genetics you need to aware of the politics of the NIH because if you are not you will not get grants and you will fail - self funding is a key issue for many if not most fields that do 'hard' science - that is get government and industry grants because universities tax those grants and thus have come to expect that income as a sign of success (in the US .

**Cannibalking** · January 31, 2011, 07:16 PM

Originally Posted by conon394

as always more than a few grammar issues now fixed -

Popularity true and that is one thing but its a bit more than that... A lot of Genetics and similar fields History, Plant breeding, Anthropology is very tight on who you know and what you do. It is not a problem unless you fail to understand that. Being the graduate student of X means you are never going to have any working relation with Y. Having this view Y means you really should not waste your time submitting to Journal X and if your are in the US and in the human genetics you need to aware of the politics of the NIH because if you are not you will not get grants and you will fail - self funding is a key issue for many if not most fields that do 'hard' science - that is get government and industry grants because universities tax those grants and thus have come to expect that income as a sign of success (in the US .

Hmmm, the world sucks...

**Adar** · February 01, 2011, 04:25 AM

Originally Posted by Cannibalking

Hmmm, the world sucks...

Sadly yes, I got my first research paper published last year and I am probably heading for the industry instead of academic research due to disliking the political side of it.

A good way to avoid the politics is to focus on making yourself commercially viable, maybe study business on the side and then head for the industry when your Ph.D. or Masters degree is finished.

**conon394** · February 02, 2011, 05:13 PM

A good way to avoid the politics is to focus on making yourself commercially viable, maybe study business on the side and then head for the industry when your Ph.D. or Masters degree is finished.

Although as PhD you need to keep you ear to the ground. A bad quarter can see a whole department fired or a huge downsizing (in small biotech) with little warning and in industry its difficult to sustain a publication record.

Hmmm, the world sucks...

Of course it does but if you know that its not so bad. I don't mean to negative, just be aware of the situation - a lot of people still think academia is Oxford dons smoking pipes. If you go for industry you get a better pay check but loose (often) the ability to publish. In academia you are increasingly under pressure to bring in grants and publish - unless you aspire to nothing more than say a basic lecture position - and even those get rarer... But again its not to say you can't carve a path just don't think you are going to get some position as a fully funded professor and start writing a book you might publish in 15 years. If you are aiming at academia - publish and publish a lot. Don't sit on anything too long or you will get scooped - nothing is perfect. Parley even weak or negative results into a well written papers somewhere in some journal there are lots. Always be working on some grant if your are not sending in 3 or 4 a year your are not going to succeed (in Genetics or bio informatics) - pretty much none get funded on the first try unless you are well established and well connected and extending some old project.

**Clibby** · February 02, 2011, 06:59 PM

The only good piece of advice I can give you is to go to a school with a good research department. In the sciences, your success after graduation will be due to two things; your GPA and your research experience. Even if you go to a very good college, if it doesn't have a research program that you can get involved in and publish with, then you will be at a disadvantage. Focus your search on universities as opposed to small colleges as they will have graduate programs, thus research opportunities for you.

**Cannibalking** · February 02, 2011, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by Clibby

The only good piece of advice I can give you is to go to a school with a good research department. In the sciences, your success after graduation will be due to two things; your GPA and your research experience. Even if you go to a very good college, if it doesn't have a research program that you can get involved in and publish with, then you will be at a disadvantage. Focus your search on universities as opposed to small colleges as they will have graduate programs, thus research opportunities for you.

Thanks for the help!