Does knowing contemporary data analysis tools and keeping a set of persuasive
Unix commands at your fingertips make you a good bioinformatician? Or,
is it that your stunning programming skills that transform you into a big tool
production house make you a good bioinformatician?
I, recently, performed an extensive literature mining and considered the opinions of pioneering researchers and scientists in the
field of bioinformatics on this topic.
Disclaimer:
- If you are an established researcher and looking from a
professional angle then this article is not for you (Although we are
going to discuss the foundation here). I would be happy to redirect you to "10 Steps to Success in Bioinformatics"
- If you are not from the category 1, then you are on the right page.
While mining I came across various raging discussions
regarding, what bioinformaticians are meant to do? Some people were
adamant on the notion that experts from various fields should
collaborate together instead of one person doing all the things poorly!
It is crucial to understand that a bioinformatician is different from
mathematician/statistician and he/she is also different from a biologist in regards
to their ability to establish an interface for research and also channel
the requirements and findings from both the directions.
 |
| A disparity
between a biologist, a mathematician and a bioinformatician! |
One thing I observed is that the definition of bioinformatics is not universally agreed upon. Generally
speaking, we define it as the development and application of information
technology for understanding the problems in
biology, most commonly molecular biology (but increasingly in other
areas of biology as well). As such, it deals with methods for systematic
storage,
retrieval and analysis of biological data including but not limited to
nucleic acid and protein sequences, their structures, functional roles,
regulatory pathways and biophysical interactions.
Some
researchers interpret bioinformatics more narrowly and
include only those issues dealing with high throughput
sequencing data along with the integration and the analysis of OMICs. A
few construe bioinformatics more broadly and include
all areas of computational biology, including population modelling and
molecular simulations. Others construe bioinformatics as the
development of necessary tools and databases for the analysis of
biological data to draw meaningful conclusions.
In
spite of the diversity in the bioinformatics domains, the foundation of
which can be summed up in three major pillars of education:
- Biology
- Mathematics and Statistics
- Computer Science
It is ideal but at
the same time ambitious to be able to grasp all the three pillars of
bioinformatics. A good bioinformatician would possess a thorough
knowledge of any two pillars but AT THE SAME time should also be aware
of the fundamentals of the third one.
If you have
trouble deciding, then let your INTEREST pick your two pillars, based on
which you will develop a bioinformatics flavor, right from sequence
analysis to molecular dynamic simulations.
These
pillars in themselves are very diverse if we dive into them. For example, when we talk
about biology, it comprises of molecular biology, biochemistry, evolution, ecology, behaviour etc. Similarly, in mathematics and
statistics, you have a range of options right form probability theory to
analytical combinatorics. In soft skills you have options from
programming languages to learning systems.
You can browse through some of these streams and learn more about
them here at "
Your eLearning Directory of Bioinformatics essentials".
One becomes a bioinformatics domain expert based on what slice he/she
takes from the stack. You may chose molecular biology, differentials and
integrals, and Matlab or equivalent, and be a good bioinformatician in
the domain of molecular dynamics and simulations. Some people might
argue that this is a very naive theory and one would require to know
much more than that. Well naturally there is no upper limit. If you keep
your knowledge stagnant for a long, you will soon realise that you have
stopped growing. The pace at which advancements are happening in the
field of biology and technology, it has become vital to upgrade our
knowledge, skills and techniques but at the same time it is absolutely
essential to stick to your stream, because success comes from experiences and
experiences comes from dedicated efforts.
Your
integrity is like a tip of an iceberg. The same tip, from outside may
appear smaller than a frozen lake but when it comes to summer, the tip
is all that remains since it has a strong foundation which no ordinary
summer can melt.
