Three years on, and this still feels very relevant and helpful. Getting into the field soon as a recent grad. Thank you!

I'm so glad that I landed here (and so thankful to YT algorithms ;)). I'm about to start my MSc thesis, and you described in a nutshell, everything that I have gone and I am going through to make it done, that overwhelming feeling when you realize that you could do almost everything, and then realizing that you should take it easy and focused, the intuitive process of diving into a (at first) scary new field such as informatics ... Thanks for this, I bet you will motivate and keep motivating people like me on their way to master their bioinformatics path.

Very practical approach given for beginners..encouraged to immediately follow her to do list to get started.

Just found this video and your website. Looking forward to exploring more. Thank you!

This was such a great and insightful video! As a college sophomore studying biology, it has gotten me thinking about how I can get my foot into the bioinformatics field. I'm definitely going to fit learning python into my daily schedule now!

Hello. Thank you for this great video. I am going to take these recomendations into consideration. I hope you keep doing these videos. Greetings from Mexico.

I am so glad I found this channel.

Hi, Thank you for all this useful and organized information...looking forward for more inspiring videos

Thank you I was really struggling to start in bio informatics

Thank you. I've already had three careers. Now I've gone back to school for the fourth. I have been intrigued by bioinformatics and have done some exploring. But this video gave me a lot of perspective and resources. Sounds like more fun than I thought. Thank you.

@MohdZaheeruddins

5 жыл бұрын

How old are you ?

@lauramarinos2100

4 жыл бұрын

you had an interesting story ...tell me which careers do you have?

Thank you Maria. This is great information!

Thank you so much for this advices!

Thank you so much for this video. I'm so glad that I watched this :)

Hi Maria, Very helpful videos!

Hey Maria - Great video! Really helps provide some direction and focus for me, as a programmer interested in bioinformatics. Love your channel, couldn't find this information/advice specific to bioinformatics anywhere else.

@OMGenomics

7 жыл бұрын

I'm so glad to hear that! I struggled to find resources when I was starting out too, so now I'm just deciding to make them myself :)

Absolutely, totally agree with your plan. Rinse, lather, repeat. ;)) The tool safari is something that I have been doing with out calling it such, but I found I just didn't like the 'way' some tools were getting things down... I might also emphasize Github . My view of Github is two fold. One, it is your resume and calling card. Two, Github is your "very own personal library of books"(software, snippets, etc.) to read through and learn from. Obviously some projects are beautiful and shiny and have all the pretty bows while others are in disrepair. I feel it is great to see them all. The Good, Bad and the Ugly. However, I strongly disagree with your websites recommendation of the Genomic Data Science Specialization from Johns Hopkins on Coursera. I could not recommend it due to several courses that had visible poor planning and terrible execution on top of it. One course in particular was thrown together at the last moment then 'taped' and 'stretched' into place to fit the bill.

Amazing to share all this

Nice video. Thanks

Hi, could you make a video exploring your projections for the future of bioinformatics? Exploring the role of bioinf in the devolping of science as a whole, and also the job market for bioinformaticians? thanks

@OMGenomics

7 жыл бұрын

I like this idea, even if I am not sure I am qualified to make any sweeping conclusions. But I am happy to share a few thoughts and predictions based on what I have seen happen in the field so far. Thanks!

Thank you so much

I have started a Bioinformatics course on Coursera after you suggested a few. And I have to say I am super hooked! My strong C++ makes it much easier and more enjoyable. Made me pick up Python for the first time in just 2 days. I am in love! Thanks for your channel and advice!

@OMGenomics

7 жыл бұрын

I'm so glad to hear that! Thanks for keeping me updated :)

@MsSuperNeus

7 жыл бұрын

Hi! Can you please add here which courses on Coursera you recommended? I'm a beginner. Thank you! Great work, Maria!

@MsSuperNeus

7 жыл бұрын

I found them in your HP :)

Thank you sooooo much ❤

Thank you so much for making these videos, I am probably going to take your advice on R and Python. I used lots of sequence alignments for part of my research when I was an undergrad in Biochem ~12 years ago. I successfully used it to predict the basic structure of our enzyme (Bilobate) before anyone could get the thing to crystalize. It was exciting to find out later that my prediction was true. Anyways I have not done any thing of the sort since. I did wet chem and biochem for years after, until I learned electronics and instrument design (self taught) and deviated into becoming an Transmission Electron Microscope Service engineer, which I have been doing for 8.5 years. Right now I am looking at Bioinformatics again, but I do not want to return to school. I have some C experience, and a splattered understanding of computer science since I have been learning how to program Microprocessors. Your suggestion to learn Python first hit me, especially since C and embedded systems are really challenging me. I just wonder if doing C and Python simultaneously is going to make my head explode!!!

@OMGenomics

6 жыл бұрын

Awesome work on the enzyme structure! I think C makes your head explode regardless, so may as well add Python. I found Python pretty easy to learn in comparison coming from C++. Good luck!

@Butch_Odowd_Sculpture

6 жыл бұрын

I am going to take your advice. Thank you!

Hi Maria, do you have any opinions on taking a part time, online MS in bioinformatics versus an in person full time option? Thank you!

Hello Maria, can you please recommend some courses/books for beginners? I'm fine in programming but I need more practice in biology

amazing speak

i really enjoyed your video on BASH! video #2. It was what would be called an "advanced" topic in bash! you have an excellent voice and i can claerly understand you and you speak in a normal manner! most talk like their is a gun to their head and they going to die! they feel the need to turn a 30 minute video into 10 by talking so rapidly with out breathing! how do they do it! we really need more advanced bash! i never new "sort" could be used twice.

Greetings from Brazil. I'm a Physics student who has some knowledge in CS. I'm really getting into bioinformatics and enjoying it so much, and your channel and content is helping me a lot. Thank you for doing that. You're awesome and really cute :) +1 subscriber. Cya!

Just found you, and love the content! Fully agree w/ this video. My background is perhaps different.. I got a BA in philosophy, taught ESL for 5 years, taught myself programming, and I've been working at a research university for 3 years. My current mission is to learn bioinformatics and help fight age-related diseases. I'm now self teaching biology. Going quite well, but lots to learn. Any advice?

@Purplehairedpimp

4 жыл бұрын

Woops; something to add! Glad that you use Argparse. I am the lead on github.com/PMA-2020/argparse-to-web , check it out! It's working great for us, but looks like I need to add external facing documentation.

What is the best undergrad major for someone considering bioinformatics? Biology, Computer science, something else?

Thank you for the great video! Could you recommend a course to learn Python from scratch?

Great! Would you have a video for small projects for starting as you suggested? I am starting now to learn bioinfo to be able to analyse my TraDis data and I have no foundation (also English is not my first language)... Nevertheless I am very motivated after watching your videos!

@OMGenomics

6 жыл бұрын

Wonderful to see you are starting out and excited about bioinformatics. That's a great question, and it's very dependent on what kind of research you do. Since you already have data, I suggest something like writing a python script that analyzes that data and maybe summarizes it in some way, and maybe it makes a few plots relevant to that data. I can't tell you exactly what to do of course since you know your field and what's relevant for your data better than I do. Good luck!

which bsc is gd botny or chemistry for getting to biotechnolgy

Can you tell some think about Gene prediction programs please.

Helpful it

I have a degree in Microbiology with a minor in Computer Science. I have a good foundation in biology & genetics and I can code stuff but how do I actually combine these two together? I want to work in genetic engineering and be one of those people who break down genomes and do modifications.

hi , i am phd student of bioinformatics . MY area of interest is AMP and non AMP Sequence classification.Normally i have simulated all my published papers codes in bioconductor R.What you think biopython is better or bioconductor is better.

Hey Maria, great episode. Since you brought the subject, could we have something about machine learning? and is it important to learn specially for those whom come from biology background?

@OMGenomics

7 жыл бұрын

I highly recommend doing Andrew Ng's Machine Learning course on Coursera, from Stanford. He explains everything very clearly, and you can decide whether to follow along and do the linear-algebra-heavy homework assignments, or just get the concepts. Same as the advice in this video, just watching the Machine Learning course will get you that foundation and make you aware of the different techniques, and then you can do a project with a particular technique if you want to learn or if it applies to your research. As an example project, you can download HapMap data and run PCA on it to see if people from different regions of the world separate into neat clusters based on their SNPs. I did that in college (with data wrangling in Python and PCA in Matlab), but I haven't actually used machine learning in my research since. Check out Scikit-learn for doing machine learning in Python (haven't used it myself yet but it is universally highly recommended).

Hi Maria, your channel is great and really informative! What do you think of careers in bioinformatics at the moment? Would you say they more or less prospective than lab-based roles? Why would I want to learn bioinformatics from a careers perspective? It would be great to hear your opinions.

@OMGenomics

7 жыл бұрын

That is a good question. I should definitely do an episode on that. I'll add it to the stack! Thanks :) To answer your question in text form though: From what I can tell, the career prospects for bioinformatics are really good. I recently talked to a professor who pays his bioinformatics post-docs about $15k more per year than the wet-lab post-docs, because that is the market. He also has trouble finding bioinformatics post-docs (and this is an influential, young, successful lab) because they get paid more in biotech industry, or some even run off and do data science at Facebook. So if you are a wet-lab scientist and switch to dry-lab bioinformatics work, you will probably have an easier time finding jobs in academia and in industry, and the ones you get will likely pay you more. Also bioinformatics is fun, and even if you don't decide to switch completely, you still need at least some basic R skills to analyze your own data.

hello. I am a freshgraduate doctor and I am interested in computer technologies, statistics and research. So is Bioinformatics a recommended field? and what do I need to study to be able to start in the field and how much time could that take? If anyone sees my comment and has any information that might help, i would be very thankful if you help me out.

hey maria i m currently studying bsc biology and i m good in programming languages like c++,java,html i m keen interested in coding from beginning and i also building few small android apps now a days i m interested in pursuing bioinformatics in future but in country like India where there is not much support in bioinformatics what would you suggest for us??

Hello. I tend to learn best when I have a specific small project to work on. If I'm new to bioinformatics, how do I go about finding a project? You listed one example below regarding HapMap. Can you give a few other suggestions or Is there a website you could point us to with real-life (somewhat beginner based) bioinformatics projects? Thanks.

@OMGenomics

6 жыл бұрын

Rosalind is a good place to start for some basic practice. You can also pick a paper that is using an interesting approach and try to reproduce their bioinformatics results. If you need data, the UCSC table browser has all the same tracks in the genome browser that you can download as bed files, so that gives you something to play with.

What is the minimum salary in this field if u have good marks??

Thanks for the guidance ! I have a Molecular biology background. If i want to learn Python and Data science, which laptops/PCs should i buy ? And have you used 1 laptop/PC for your whole career untill now. Im finding something on a budget so im taking this very seriously. Thanks ! You are inspiring

@HuyHoiHay

5 жыл бұрын

Do you use machine learning or AI in your research and workflow

@Favour_Oyelami

5 жыл бұрын

I think the specification matters most. HP, ASUS, DELL and co.. It should just have more RAM for smooth running like 8Gig upward(I'm a learner using 4Gig and 6gIG PCs though). Nevertheless, there will still be some analysis you can't run on your PC but will have to use an Institution or researcher centre's supercomputer(communicating maybe through a LINUX system from your normal PC). Macbook is great though. I hope this you'll fine this helpful.

Do we need any experience to study MSc bioinformatics?

hey ! is this an recommended field for a computer scientist interested in biology ? i am getting the idea that you ought to have a solid background in biology compared to computer science.

@KaylaKempers

5 жыл бұрын

I'm also in computer science and interested in Bioinformatics. I emailed a local university about a bioinformatics masters and she suggested basic (first year, introductory) bio courses just so you know what's going on, but she also mentioned it wasn't completely necessary, you'd require a bit of catchup, but if you're genuinely interested in bio I wouldn't worry too much! that's what I've learned :)

@johnfedorov8089

5 жыл бұрын

For what it's worth, I have an internship in fall in a bioinformatics lab. I'm a CS major.. I asked the employer what knowledge of biology I needed and he basically said I'll learn it all on the job and to not worry about it too much. Results may vary depending on the particular company / lab you want to join though

@aditya9711

4 жыл бұрын

@@johnfedorov8089 How did it go? Ps. Im a CS major too

@johnfedorov8089

4 жыл бұрын

​@@aditya9711 Overall it was a very good experience, the first few weeks I had to learn quite a bit about biology / bioinformatics, everything from basic things like DNA and prokaryotes to advanced stuff like sequencing techniques and bioinformatic related algorithms. I helped finish up software thats used for anti-microbial resistance detection (basically to find out if a particular strain of bacteria is immune to certain antibiotics), I also refactored a lot of tools written in R to be used in python instead for efficiency reasons and integrated them with their computing clusters.

@ericz8086

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnfedorov8089 hey John, what do you think helped you land the internship? Any projects you had on there that are related to Bioinformatics? I am currently a CS major and have been very interested in pursuing a career in Bioinformatics. Any tips or advice would be appreciated, thanks.

Hi mariah, what bioinformatic tool I can use in order to know that each chromosome of a certain species contains/does not contain rDNA gene?

@Cookiemonster-sk5iy

4 жыл бұрын

anglekan I’m interested

Any example small project?

Hi Maria! How are you? So, I started a search for fields that I would use as my final work on graduation, and I really think that will be Bioinformatics. But I still don't know how started or where I can, because I doing a degree in Computer Science, so my knowledge about Biology is weak still. Do you have some advice? You saw about focus in one thing inside this big area, but what you think that can be better for start? Best regards!

@abdallahmahmoud8642

5 жыл бұрын

I think it will be good idea to reach for doctors/ professors that work in that field and ask them what sorts of things you could learn so you can make projects with them or something.

Hi. It seems that this and another video of yours I saw are more geared towards biologists who want to go into bioinformatics. What about if you're a physicist, mathematician, statistician or so and have no biology background. What would you recommend for us? Thanks!

@OMGenomics

6 жыл бұрын

Hey! Great question. I'll give some general advice for anyone else reading this before asking you more about yourself: I think you can essentially jump right in and look for a masters, PhD, or job in bioinformatics, whichever you would prefer :) The biology is always going to be super specific, so you can pick that up by scanning a textbook for context and then digging deep into the research papers. Note that some fields of biology are more geared towards math and physics methods, and you will often find professors with those backgrounds working there. Here's an example: www.cshl.edu/research/faculty-staff/justin-kinney/ Are you looking for a grad student position, post-doc, industry job, or something else? What is your background so far, and where do you want to go next? Finally, what attracts you to bioinformatics?

@julian540

6 жыл бұрын

Hi. Thanks for your prompt reply, and sorry for the delay in mine. That's good news for me. How long do you think it might take to be able to get to the point of being able to read a biology paper and get something out of it. In physics it took me years before I could get to that point and I still find it very hard to read papers. My background is a BS, MS and PhD (expected this summer) in physics. My research is in a more computational, statistical/stochastic modeling of inverse problems sort of area. So I think that I am in a good position to go into bioinformatics. I also have some graduate coursework in machine learning and Bayesian modeling. I would like to get a research position in bioinformatics (postdoc if necessary, but hopefully something permanent, although I doubt that'd be an option). I am interested in bioinformatics for the statistical and stochastic modeling that it demands. I am very interested in machine learning/statistical learning algorithm development, really in any field, but I would love it if my work could help people more directly (even if not immediately). Since I am not familiar with what each subfield entails, I don't know what I can say more specifically, but if there is anything in epigenetics that'd be awesome. I would be very interested in genetics of diseases as well. I may have said something biologically unreasonable without even knowing it, so any advice, thoughts, comments and opinions are greatly welcome! Thanks so much!

Could you talk about what I can do in bioinformatics before my PHD? Or do you have a video for this?

@OMGenomics

6 жыл бұрын

are you asking about jobs you can have without a PhD, or something more along the lines of how to learn bioinformatics as preparation for a PhD?

@carolineyenoom

6 жыл бұрын

Yes! I'm not ready to move on the my Masters degree, and I have a degree in mathematics and computer science, but Im not finding too many positions that work for me. Thanks!

So for someone who just graduated high school, what should I study? should I go to university or college? what should I study there?

@OMGenomics

3 жыл бұрын

Umm those are pretty big questions you have to decide for yourself :)

Is learning C++ necessary ?

I also studied CS, but find it very difficult to understand biological databases, basics of genes, proteins etc. I started to read Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, and pathology books. Still like 12000 pages to read and I found out that some knowledge of laboratory is needed... Postdocs ask for 60 credits in Biology... So I am confused. When I talk to the professors they are working on a very specific topic. I asked a professor who works in sequencing of human organs dna about folding problem and he didn't have a clue... So I am confused. Is there a way that one could get an understanding of biology without getting BA in biology?

@OMGenomics

4 жыл бұрын

Biology is a huge field, and therefore so is bioinformatics. We all end up having to focus, so I wouldn’t be too discouraged that you can’t learn everything in detail. The basics are important, but we can also never stop learning and delving deeper into the part we choose to focus on. You may be able to find a postdoc position that requires more CS and less actual credits of biology if you don’t have more semesters in school to get those in. Good luck!

I had zoology in my graduation level. So I don't have really that knowledge in computer science and mathematics. Will it be a good decision to do msc in bioinformatics ?

@OMGenomics

6 жыл бұрын

That's funny, someone asked almost the exact same question in the comments on my "what is bioinformatics" video. I recommend that you get some familiarity in at least computer science and statistics. You can take some courses online like on Coursera, or check out my R tutorials, especially the Plotting in R for Biologists series -- which happens to be a good beginner introduction to programming in R, which is a great language to start with for bioinformatics in general since so many people are using it in the field.

@madhus.3557

6 жыл бұрын

OMGenomics sorry but, I am not completely dumb in computer science and statistics though, just have some basic knowledge only. And uh didn't clear it for me, if it is a good decision or not. Plz

@OMGenomics

6 жыл бұрын

Well, are you interested in bioinformatics? I can't answer whether it's a good decision without knowing you and your motivations a lot better. You can learn anything, but do you want to?

@madhus.3557

6 жыл бұрын

OMGenomics okay, let me tell you the exact thing, the matter is the universities I applied for life sciences mater's, I cdnt get in unfortunately, n there are still little chances of getting in, so I got this stream as a second priority. I was actually more interested in animal sciences, and if something much more related to animals , bioinformatics can help me to learn , I will choose it. I am more interested in research courses.

how about the inverse, if someone is coming from IT world and want to start bioinformatics?

@mameseynaboudiop2108

4 жыл бұрын

Hi, I did! I was a software engineer and now i'm doing a master degree on bioinformatics. So you can

stack overflow is your friend :) ahah well

How use phyton???

@IgnoreMyChan

6 жыл бұрын

Just install it (apt install python) and then start it using 'python'.

Mam I am a b pharm student can I learn bioinformatics ? Please please reply mam🙏🏻.

@OMGenomics

3 жыл бұрын

Anyone can learn!

As bioinformatic you don't need to be good in programing lanugages. You should know that you can't beat someone with Computer Science degree. They programmed in much advanced level as bioinformatics do. They studied computer science to become good in programming, etc. Someone who went to study bioinformatics knows that the main think is not programing but biology, genetics, etc. So... don't you worry if you don't know to program, because you don't need it pretty much. I got master from Bioinformatics and I regret it a little. I like biology and my friends who studied biology are much better in biology as I am, also friends that studied computer science are much better in programing as I am. So... bioinformatic is something between these courses. My opinion is... it's hard to be good everywhere, so.. if you like biology, go and focus just on Biology, if you like programing, go and focus just on Computer Science, the same is for medicine, etc... Bioinformatics combine this all courses, but that doesn't mean that you will be good in every of these course, that means that you can work for example as biologist and uses programs that are related with biology, etc.

@ko-Daegu

5 жыл бұрын

Ana Will if a computer science graduate wanna do few biology projects ... Interested in the whole dna thing going around how to start biology is a big topic is there is like small crash course or points that I need to focus in and then I can do cool project .... Or maybe what do I need to know to work with a another biologist.., Oooh also projects like : AI to identify cells that have cancer ( I know for you this may make no since but I hope you know what I mean )

@jakkuwolfinsomnia8058

5 жыл бұрын

I screenshotted your comment bro because I was thinking about doing a Masters in Bioinformatics but my passion is Medicine, I love computer programming and I love biochemistry but I don't think my passion is purely bioinformatics I think learning the skills themselves are more important than studying it in university, I appreciate your comment and it really helped me think more about what's important to me ^^

You're Scandinavian

@OMGenomics

2 жыл бұрын

Duh 😊

you go from zero to 100 talking about tools. All the sudden its greek to me.

Hey Maria .... I like the way you talk Really love your voice.. Actually my heart is vibrating for you 😍😍😍 Expecting complement from you 😀

@IgnoreMyChan

6 жыл бұрын

The E on your shirt is in a nice font. - Is that enough of a compliment for you? Dumbass.