Looking for a hot career path? Know about big data? Interested in biology? Consider bioinformatics.
Bioinformatics combines biology, statistics, and computer science to analyze and make sense of huge amounts of biomedical information for policy makers in government, academia, and industry. Recently, there has been an explosion in bioinformatics careers, due in part to the development of new tools that help analyze biomedical data.
And there is a lot of data to analyze. In the world of big data, the life sciences take a back seat to no one. The tsunami of information being generated by biological research has created a high demand for specialists who understand both biology and data.
Bioinformaticists do more than make sense of mountains of biomedical information. They do more than answer data queries. They also help determine what questions need to be asked in the first place. Bioinformatics is not just a tool; it is a discipline in itself.
In many global pharmaceutical and biotech companies, bioinformaticists conduct research on new approaches to analyzing data and help design and build the analysis tools, according to Christian Reich, global head of discovery informatics at AstraZeneca. In some companies, bioinformaticists investigate trends in diseases and drug development and discovery. Bioinformatics scientists often participate in all levels of research, from helping to design experiments to choosing participants.
Many experts agree that bioinformatics is the hottest field on the planet. George Telthorst, director of the Center for the Business of Life Sciences at Indiana University, advises big data specialists to bring their expertise to the life sciences, where “you’ll know you’re going to make a difference, at the patient level and at the societal level.”