How to start Bioinformatics ?

Question

[Eslam Samir]

I'm very new to bioinformatics so any suggestion how to start ?

my field is microbiology & molecular biology

[Ashutosh Pandey]

Your question is too general. Bioinformatics is a wide field. Are you interested in next generation sequence analysis or are you into structural biology? Please be specific.

[Eslam Samir]

just wanna to help in Functional genmoics

having DNA sequences to compare with known sequences of literature (just for start now)

Answer 1

[supertech]

Hi!,

I have been there! Do you know any computer programming or scripting language! If not, start with a Linux or awk tutorial. There are several very user friendly bioinformatics tools. Install them into your computer, choose a project and try to analyze some sample data. Get some NGS data try to analyze it. If you do not have it yourself, try to download from publications or sample data from Illumina website. Start with simple things such as check sequence base quality, genome coverage, estimation of insert size, etc Following three bioinformatics tools will give you a good start: bedtools, samtools, bamtools. You can check official documentation for installation, if you are using a mac computer, here is a page explaining how to install them: http://genescripts.com/

Just try to use each command and figure out what they doing. You will learn a lot. Visit forums like this and read them. Try to take free courses online from Coursera, Mitedx, Udacity, etc. A great public tool is Galaxy project. There are many tutorial video there. You will learn a lot. Have fun during your studies!

[Eslam Samir]

That is very helpful Thanks for this comment :))

Answer 2

[Steve Lianoglou]

First, register and participate in this bioinformatics MOOC that is currently being taught by Rafael Irizarry and Michael Love: Data Analysis for Genomics

Then, identify problems relevant to your research that can addressed using bioinformatic tools, and practice what you have learned on them (and learn new things in the process).

[Eslam Samir]

Thanks for the appreciated help :D

Answer 3

[Prakki Rama]

Check this beautiful posts in Biostar Advice For Newcomers To The Bioinformatics Field, How Did You Learn Good Practice In Bioinformatics/Computational Biology?

Answer 4

[hamed2005]

there is a MOOC that would be offered at Edx: "Quantitative Biology Workshop" starting Jun 10th.

for registration go to this link.

Answer 5

[Eslam Samir]

Thanks all for that help.

Actually I've done a lot of bioinformatics and here is my first product

Here is my free program on Github Sequence database curator

It is a very fast program and it can deal with:

1. Nucleotide sequences
2. Protein sequences

It can work under Operating systems:

1. Windows
2. Mac
3. Linux

It also works for:

1. Fasta format
2. Fastq format

Best Regards

Answer 6

[MB]

https://bioinformaticsreview.com/20200818/bioinformatics-where-how-to-start/