Forum:Map of bioinformatics or who is bioinformatician.

Question

[dshulgin]

Hi, everyone. I know that I've asked lots of, in some way, stupid question, sorry for that. The next one can be a bit boring and has a bit reflection. I'm thinking about how can I say that what I'm really doing is bioinformatics? I mean, I'm 23, work in IT sphere, have been developing web-sites etc., now I'm helping biologist to deal with bioinformatics files and bio programming libraries trying to automate their work. Can I say that I do bioinformatics or just programming? Where is the edge? What I should know to treat yourself as bioinformatician? And the second question is what are the main types of questions or issues modern bioinformatics has? I know that's a huge and broad field, but I'm just trying to get sorted and draw a picture of "land of bioinformatics".

Thanks a lot

[Pierre Lindenbaum]

:-)

You know you're a Bioinformatician when you call it a 'pattern' instead of 'habit'

— #Twiteeyapa (@twiteeyapa) October 5, 2014

You know you're a bioinformatician when you've had to create your 5th dual screen switcher workspace. #shelloverkill

— Robert Davey (@froggleston) August 20, 2013

You know you're a bioinformatician when ... Cufflinks, TopHat & BowTie aren't used just for weddings! #MolBio

— Invitrogen (@invitrogen) May 2, 2014

You know you're a bioinformatician when you google cufflinks and expect it take you to the source forge page

— ♡♡♡ Lenore (@lpipes) October 19, 2012

@pmelsted @laurastephen

Laura's right, real bioinformaticians use other people's software ;-)

— Mick Watson (@BioMickWatson) December 26, 2015

@ZaminIqbal @DNAntonie Real bioinformaticians don't read paper - Github README.md is surely enough.

— Torsten Seemann (@torstenseemann) July 5, 2015

@biomickwatson @drchriscole @andrewsu REAL bioinformaticians write their own tools in Perl.

— Marek Gierlinski (@MarekGierlinski) April 29, 2015

@alanmcn1 real bioinformaticians do their own IT admin!

— Nick Loman (@pathogenomenick) October 30, 2014

#realbioinformaticians use code versioning and code review all day long

— Radhouane Aniba (@radaniba) October 18, 2014

#realbioinformaticians can write ASN.1 and do sequence analysis with GCG

— Robin Haw (@robinhaw) October 17, 2014

@chrisamiller More like #realbioinformaticians know when not to use Excel :)

— Ram Srinivasan (@_ramrs) October 17, 2014

#realbioinformaticians don't use excel and roll their eyes at those who do.

— Chris Miller (@chrisamiller) October 16, 2014

#realbioinformaticians don't use galaxy ! ( https://t.co/DLWZTTpEVQ )

— Pierre Lindenbaum (@yokofakun) October 16, 2014

#realbioinformaticians have written at least one fasta parser

— Lex Nederbragt (@lexnederbragt) October 16, 2014

(...)

[WouterDeCoster]

You are a bioinformatician if you googled for string and expected the protein interaction database.

[Pierre Lindenbaum]

did you write a program to convert a file to another format ? you're a bioinformatician ;-P

[dshulgin]

lol, i really like your attitude, but i'm serious. self-identification questions eat me, that's why i'm trying to get the answers from other people.

[GenoMax]

self-identification questions eat me

Why?

You can call yourself a bioinformatician. I don't mind. It is what you know that will matter at the end rather than a title.

[dshulgin]

Thanks man. Anything about "map" of bioinformatics?

Answer 1

[Istvan Albert]

Here is my adaption based on the blog post by Anthony Fejes: Who is a bioinformatician?

What is a Biostar?

[GenoMax]

Here is my vote for a new "BioStar" badge on BioStars.

You get one once you have obtained one for every other category that exists :)

[kirannbishwa01]

Based on this chart, I qualify as being a bioinfromatician. :) Good to know.

Answer 2

[Farbod]

Dear dshulgin, Hi

In my idea, in an official manner; a bioinformatic scientist is a person who has passed university courses related to bioinformatics (some Biology related courses , e.g genetic, biology, biochemistry and . . . and some Computer science/programming courses).

Some people suggest that this science is more biological than computer related (hence it begin with Bio- not Informatic),

Of course my experiences have shown that the people with the computer science/programming background are playing in this field in a shortcut way - and are more successful (than biologists) - even without having any idea about what really is happening in the body of living organisms at the cellular or molecular levels!

~ Good Luck

[WouterDeCoster]

I think many many bioinformatic scientist have an educational background in either bio-sciences or computer sciences, rarely both, and during their career learned the other half.

[Istvan Albert]

people with the computer science/programming background are playing in this field in a shortcut way - and are more successful (than biologists)

I agree but I think that might be a temporary situation - our understanding and the software that we have at our disposal are rudimentary and can only be operated with a sysadmin, devops or other comp-sci background - we also do not understand well what we need to handle.

Twenty years ago the ability of writing a Hello World in Basic was considered an employable skill - today not so much.

[Farbod]

Dear Istvan, Hi.

I remember that "Basic language Hello World" programming era, too.

I had one of these (What was is really ?) and use it for programming. ;-)