bookmark:
connotea
::
del.icio.us
::digg
::furl
::reddit
::yahoo::
The Scientist Merging IT and Biology
[requires 'free' registration]
"Much of the promise of bioinformatics likely lies with the big money and novel approaches of the private sector. At a late October symposium titled "Biosilico 2000," several bioinformatics company executives came together at the Trump Plaza in New York City to discuss the state of the immensely expansive and increasingly heterogeneous field of bioinformatics. Not surprisingly, many touted their products and business plans; but they also discussed and compared philosophies for engaging in the daunting task of applying information technology to biology, chemistry, and medicine.
Sponsored by Scientific American magazine, the symposium, the first of a series to be held annually, addressed the crucial dilemma faced by these companies, many of them only a few years old: How will they and their customers keep from drowning in an ever-increasing sea of raw genomics data that, largely a result of the Human Genome Project, has inundated biology and chemistry? "
The Scientist New PTO Unit Examines Bioinformatics Applications
[requires 'free' registration]
"Last year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) routinely assigned patent applications for bioinformatics inventions to examiners in diverse departments. Then the office made a projection, based on input from companies, that it would receive more than 300 such applications in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. To ensure consistent treatment for the predicted flood of filings, PTO created Art Unit 1631 (AU1631) last December. This unit now consists of 10 examiners holding degrees, sometimes joint ones, in disciplines ranging from biology to physics to electrical engineering.
The deluge, however, never materialized."
The Scientist Retooling for Bioinformatics
[requires 'free' registration]
"To retool for a job in bioinformatics first requires some considerations. You need to ask yourself: "What kind of job do I want? Research at a pharmaceutical firm or genomics start-up? Teaching and research in academia? Or, do I really want to learn the latest tools to enhance my molecular biology research?"
The most flexibility for jobseekers, says Hunter, is in pharmaceutical firms and biotech companies because the demand is the greatest there. At the very least when looking for a position in bioinformatics you'll need to exhibit an interest and basic skills, which can be picked up through mini-courses, summer courses, and other venues, to land an entry-level job at a larger company. It also helps if your biological expertise is in an area in which the firm is interested, such as G-coupled receptor proteins. But, he cautions, "funding issues alone are not enough of a motivation," to move into bioinformatics.
Specialists emphasize that there's a big difference between using informatics tools and inventing new ones. If you're serious about inventing new tools or about a more senior-level position, then you'll need some formal training in computer science, says Hunter. He adds that this is not just about programming. "You'll need to know about data structures, computational complexity, and numeric methods."
“Bioinformatics will be at the core of biology in the 21st century. In fields ranging from structural biology to genomics to biomedical imaging, ready access to data and analytical tools are fundamentally changing the way investigators in the life sciences conduct research and approach problems. Complex, computationally intensive biological problems are now being addressed and promise to significantly advance our understanding of biology and medicine. No biological discipline will be unaffected by these technological breakthroughs.”
BIOINFORMATICS IN THE 21st CENTURY
biospace
/
genomeweb
/
bio-it world
/
scitechdaily
/
biomedcentral
/
the panda's thumb
/
bioinformatics.org
/
nodalpoint
/
flags and lollipops
/
on genetics
/
a bioinformatics blog
/
andrew dalke
/
the struggling grad student
/
in the pipeline
/
gene expression
/
free association
/
pharyngula
/
the personal genome
/
genetics and public health blog
/
the medical informatics weblog
/
linuxmednews
/
nanodot
/
complexity digest
/
eyeforpharma
/
nsu
/
nyt science
/
bbc scitech
/
newshub
/
biology news net
/
informatics review
/
stanford
/
bmj info in practice
/
bmj info in practice
/
look snazzy and support the site at the same time by buying some snowdeal schwag !
valid xhtml 1.0?
This site designed by
Eric C. Snowdeal III
.
© 2000-2005