In last two decades their is tremendous growth in the field of bioinformatics, a large number of databases, software, web servers and papers has been published. Today, it is impossible to handle biological data without help of bioinformaticians or bioinformatics tools. Despite exponential growth, still this field is not recognized. In most of the places, it is still considered part of other subjects like biological sciences, computer sciences. Latest example is list of "Worlds Most Influential Scientific Minds" http://sciencewatch.com/sites/sw/files/sw-article/media/worlds-most-influential-scientific-minds-2014.pdf published by Thomson Reuters, they mentioned 21 broad field but Bioinformatics is missing. Though this list have lot of bioinformaticians, has been listed in other related subjects. I think bioinformatics should be recognized as an independent subject rather than part of other subjects. May I know view of other colleagues.
After talking to the students, i have learn t that;
They feel it is a difficult subject.
They are not sure about placements in India.
Being an inter disciplinary subject, again core subject jobs are doubtful.
@Jaya, Thanks for sharing your experience. In most of groups, biologist are using bioinformaticians for their research, in other words bioinformaticians are worker rather than leader.
Bioinformatics is an integral part of biological research and they beyond doubt represent the two sides of a virtual coin complementing each other. A true bioinformatician knows the regulatory mechanisms and the functional implication that an analysis would bring in, as it is with the researcher. Being in the genomic era, it’s hard to find research minds with bioinformatics skills and a bioinformaticians with innovative research minds (at least where I stand). Pursuing different domains is required to land a job, far beyond graduating.
Say it is a next gen sequencing or microarray analysis; in-depth Bioinformatics’ tools are required for genomic data analysis. It’s evidently true that Bioinformatician equally contribute to the success of any biological research and they deserve a much more appreciation. But separating them into specific category is not well recommended, as together we complete the story and create the magical world of Genomics.
Today, situation of Bioinformatics is similar to biochemistry long time back.
I agree with all the above but what I have gathered from students is also a fact. Things will definitely change slowly.
@Jaya, I agree with view that it is a really difficult subject. Learning both subjects biology and computer is very difficult.
Bioinformatics is an important tool for molecular modelling of newer drugs / drug design . Obviously correlation between biology and Computer knowledge is different .Knowledge of Chemistry , and basic programming skill of C,C++ may be
a bridge for Computer and Biological correlation .
Bioinformatics is the analysis of biological information using computer and statistical techniques. Is a science that seeks to use and develop databases and computer algorithms and promote biological research.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Bioinformatics
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology