Bioinformatics
Introduction
Bioinformatics is new hot topic after the Software. In the coming days there will be huge demand of Bioinformatics professionals in all sectors of biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and biomedical sciences. According to The Tribuen "Globally, the biotech computing sector is estimated to touch a whopping $30 billion by 2003 and $ 60 billion in 2005."
What is Bioinformatics?
Bioinformatics is the use of IT in biotechnology for the data storage, data warehousing and analyzing the DNA sequences. In Bioinfomatics knowledge of many branches are required like biology, mathematics, computer science, laws of physics & chemistry, and of course sound knowledge of IT to analyze biotech data. Bioinformatics is not limited to the computing data, but in reality it can be used to solve many biological problems and find out how living things works.
Skills Required to become successful Bioinformatician As mentioned earlier Bioinformatics profession requires wide range and it is not possible to learn all of them. Here is the important topics very essential to enter in this profession.
- Molecular Biology
- Central Dogma of molecular biology
- Experience with one or more of Molecular Biology software
packages. Learn to use sequence analysis and molecular modeling
software. Some of the molecular biology packages are GCG, BLAST,
FASTA etc.
- Learn Unix or Linux
Since these days Unix or Linux (Free open source) is extensively used in biotechnology for is robustness and available tools & software for this platform, its very important to learn these operating system.
- Computer Programming Language like C/C++, Perl or Python, Java and
HTML should be known by Bioinformatician.
- Database Management Systems
Learn Oracle and MySQL (Free Database Server) which is extensively used for store gigabytes of biotech data for further analysis.
Bioinformatician's Job Profile
These days jobs available in Bioinformatics are mainly related to the design and implementation of software systems (Bioinformatics Systems) for data ware housing and analysis or DNA sequences and structure of proteins etc. Bioinformatics job may include Data Mining, DBA and development of system for Diagnostic kits, Bioinformatics software, Proteomics (Structure and function of proteins) & Genomics (Expression and functions of genes), publishing the biotechnological data & research papers on the web.
Bioinformatics course can help IT professionals, scientists and managers involved in the implementation of large Bioinformatics systems. Science students/graduates interested in biotechnology and genetic engineering can also go for Bioinformatics courses. Post Graduate digree courses is Bioinformatics are highly rewarding, but diploma (online and academic) courses provided by institutes are also equally important if you are good and highly productive on your work.