r/bioinformaticscareers

Please suggest me an online certificate course for bioinformatics along with programming and AI for this summer

I am a 2nd year biotech student and i want to get some knowledge about dry lab

I’m 32 this year and seriously considering going back to school for a bioinformatics degree, with the goal of eventually doing a Master later in Australia / other countries.

Right now I work in the advertising industry, but over the years I’ve started feeling that the work doesn’t give me much satisfaction anymore.

Biology and computer science are the fields that genuinely interest me, so I want to give this path a try while I still can, rather than regret not trying later in life.

What I’m worried about is if Aus culture realistically accept someone like me entering the industry as a complete beginner after graduation at this age

• Is starting over in bioinformatics/tech in my mid-to-late 30s realistic?

• Is this too risky considering I may have more family responsibilities in the next few years?
I’d really appreciate honest opinions, especially from people working in Australia, bioinformatics, academia, or anyone who changed careers later in life.

Hey everyone!

I'm a veterinarian and I recently got accepted into a master's program in bioinformatics. I'm way more into research than clinical practice, so I'm really interested in joining this program. However, I'm a bit afraid that my background could affect future career opportunities.

Do you think that a veterinary background could be a disadvantage when applying for phd positions or bioinformatics jobs later on? Could this combination be valuable in the job market? I'm particularly interested in opportunities in Europe, so do you guys think a master's alone would be enough to enter the field?

Thank you all for your input!

im thinking of doing ms bioinformatics and have done my bachelors in biotechnology with many tech electives like machine learning and all and also have learned much on my own too , i m like terrified after ppl saying on reddit about bioinformatics job market and all in USA

i wanna ask

1. will i really wont get anyyy job even after my ms?

2. if the job market as ppl are saying if the real condition is really that bad then if not even 50 percent of students from my ms college gets placed wont it be a problem for the college

And let me be clear i m talking about industry not research and not academia

hope u guys will help me! thank you

Btech bioinformatics and still confused which one to go for, pcb student with no coding skill for now planing to go abroad for masters but yeah again noida i have my home there and uk abt the day scholars it sucks but yet good side more internship opportunities but I'm kinda confused

I have bachelors in computer science, and i was interested to do masters in bioinformatics and later phd in US . How would you advice me to go to masters or directly take time and do phd. and i also need to build my foundation in bioinformatics.advice any books or playlists that can help me.

i have bachelor's degree in biochemistry and biotech and want to learn bioinformatics/computational biology but how to get started? everything looks overwhelming

i really could use some guidance. thanks so much in advance!

Bioinformatics is inclined more towards biology or computers. I am a person who did his undergraduation in CS and got interested in bioinformatics and have made a few ML projects for the same.

I got accepted as a master's student for a bioinformatics course, but I am wondering for a PhD role later on, will my background cause a problem? How good are the future prospects?

TLDR - Are bioinformatics PhD's, computer scientists who got interested in biology and did their research or the other way around.

I am an M.Tech student and I want to pursue a career in Bioinformatics. Initially I thought I will apply for a PhD abroad (UK/Germany/any other country in EU) and I will get a fully funded position and then I will pursue a career and everything would be sweet and daddy. I am sadly reporting that after a full year of cold emails, applications and conversation, I don't have anything and I thought after close to 600-700 cold emails and hundreds of applications, I would at least have something before graduation which is in coming June. Positive responses from UK and Germany have also done nothing for me because after these conversations, applications still doesn't get me to an interview stage.

I honestly am tired of this because I am simultaneously juggling projects and my thesis, and I am genuinely lost on what I should do. I didn't have any luck in GATE or CSIR-NET and that is my fault but I wanted to do PhD abroad anyway so I didn't care but now I feel like I am shooting too high. My goal was to get a paid position, preferably PhD or Job as a bioinformatician or a Computational biology related position in academia or industry by June but I have nothing as of yet...

Can people pls give me some tips, I am genuinely tired now and I think I need help with this.

Hi all! I just graduated and most recently decided I want to do a PhD in computational biology/biomedical informatics (specifically interested in AI/ML in genetics & healthcare) so I want to gauge my chances and any advice or recommendations.

Research experience:

• Computational genetics research (single-cell/multi-omics, RNA-seq), honors thesis + first-author manuscript submitted in this area
• AI & public health project with a first-author conference paper
• Two summer internships with poster presentations
• Multiple poster and oral presentations, including at national conferences
• Won a faculty award for excellence in undergrad research

Other background:

• Pretty strong/frequent leadership, mentoring, and STEM advocacy work on campus
• Strong programming & data science background (Python, R, stats & ML coursework)
• Also won a few hackathons (both local & one national)
• GPA: 3.4/4.0, including having to retake two classes, but upward trend after an early dip??? Definitely my biggest weakness. At one point I was pre-med so I stuck those out for a while and I regret doing that.
• I would generally say my rec letters should be pretty strong. One of my PIs actually nominated me for my award and has spoken really highly of me. I have a strong relationship with my other PI as well, as well as another letter writer from my campus leadership experience who can speak really well to my character.
• I do not want to do a masters, but I'm conflicted because I do want to go a good school in my field, at least one that is good enough for future prospects & advising as well as research in my specific field of interest. The issue is that most of the schools that do really strong research in my field are places like Harvard and Stanford where I know I won't get in, so I want to make sure the school I get into has a good enough pedigree to help me in my career. I'm considering taking the GRE this summer to potentially offset my GPA but I also know some schools will not care about it.
  • Schools on my list right now include: Stony Brook, UBuffalo, GW, NYU, UW, WashU, Columbia, Dartmouth, UDelaware, BU, etc.
  • I'm tryna have a mix of schools that may be more feasible to get into, but also some reaches. I didn't really wanna do reaches because I know I probably won't get in, but my mentors keep encouraging me to try even after telling them my GPA. I know one of my PIs was actually a postdoc at a top university and I'm hoping I can use his connections, does this work???
• Similarly, I'm doing a 1-year research fellowship at a major research institution and in bio/ML research that I'm super interested in and possibly want to do in my PhD. My PI also has a pretty strong pedigree/connections?

What do you all think? Any schools or programs you'd recommend? Would appreciate any honest feedback or advice!

Hello people of Reddit, i seek your advice, and generally just feel like getting this out of my system. (It did get a bit long and messy, just like my code tends to, sorry.)

I am feeling increasingly lost in my post-PhD limbo. (Defended 8mo ago, neuroscience.) I am in a weird (but not unique) position of having been "forced" (ie. "Well , someone has to do it!! :D") to analyse genomic/single cell omics data for YeArS during PhD with a better-than-average stats/linear algebra base (good stats teacher during my uni years) and no mentorship. Learned (still learning...) it from scratch, trial/error, digging up tutorials and Biostars. Never had a mentor who knew anything about it, our lab was a vey small, classic post mortem human histology lab.

I do have fun with the analysis, its like detective work, but I obviously never got to the level of actual computational scientists. Like, to this day I struggle with git and anything I need the terminal for. And it tires me a lot too. Its not my domain - my home is the lab, the confocal, the relatively basic stats of my primitive little data...

However, I quickly realized that omics analysis became my "most valued" skill. Before even finishing PhD i have been asked to join 2 labs (both part-time), 100% for single cell data analysis and related things. And while I am SUPER GRATEFUL for the opps, I

1, feel horrible all the time due to not being entirely sure about what I'm doing - and seeing clearly that even the best I do will only ever be mediocre. Because clearly I am not at the level of comp bio ppl regularly doing Nature Neuro level analyses.

2, i feel like I am a Temu bioinformatician for these labs. Cheap, but .. 🥲😂

3, i am truly unable to decide whether this is GOOD because I will get better and better and easly build up an 8+ year practical experience in biologically interpreting messy omics data from mice, human, retina, brain, etc, and in bridging communication between comp guys and non-comp guys, which is clearly a very valuable thing ...

OR...

I am wasting my time and even doing damage to my current PIs because I deliver objectively mediocre results; I will never be good enough to apply to "BETTER" labs (I mean regarding single cell omics); my knowledge will plateau; and I will lose touch with my original (albeit basic) expertise.

How do you see this, people in bioinformatics? What is the "general opinion" about people who transition from biology to bioinfo/comp bio? Is there a role for "people like me"?

To give you a snapshot of my current "skills", I use R and the Seurat/Bioconductor world, usually use Harmony for integration, and my fun starts at cluster identification/DEG interpretation/pathway analyses. I shuffle multiple approaches for DEG testing - it also depends on the dataset/our questions. I prefer pseudobulk but I also check what Seurat does with default Wilcox and MAST. I use DecontX and SoupX (compare), scDblFinder, and cell type score based manual filtering for cleaning up data. I use monocle3 for pseudotime inference, but for example, velocity is intimidating for me. I have some experience with cellranger and building custom reference genomes, but that is way out of my comfort zone. I recently started to work on spatial data and for that i use the python/scanpy world l, which is less comfortable than R at this point, but its not as bad as I feared it would be.

Also... I do think a lot about applying for postdocs, but I have quite low self-esteem and am not very ambicious. I believe for a succesful postdoc period, you Need To Want To Be A Postdoc 100000%. I don't dream of establishing and maintaining my own lab, I think i'm rather a staff scientist/happy cog in the machine type... Also as a female approaching 30, the kid question looms over me, among many other looming things, not making any decision particularly easier...

SOOOO .. i'd be very grateful for any insight, advice, anything .. ✌️🙆‍♂️

22 F, I am currently in my 4th year of btech in Biotechnology and am thinking of going forward with Bioinformatics. I am currently doing python and juggling through AI ML basics, but I don't know where to go further or what to do ahead after this. Any seniors kindly guide , what resources did you use for AIML what type of projects did u do, please 😭🙏

I did my bachelors in SE last year and currently working as a Junior software engineer specialized in python. I’ve always been fascinated in biology but at this point I have little to no memory in biology and have to do some studies in the field if I want to get into bioinformatics

My concern is how’s the job market going? Is it as hard as to find a SE job? Which sides would you recommend to be specialized in ? And any additional advice?

Thank you

I graduated with a BSc in pharmacology last year so don’t have computational experience - I recently got a position as an RA at a really prestigious university (UK) but it’s all wet-lab based. I like wet lab stuff so don’t mind but am thinking of moving towards bioinformatics in the future.

I was considering doing an MSc in cancer genomics but am now debating if paying all the money for a master’s in general is necessary for a PhD if I’m already getting a lot of academic research experience - I know some PhDs will accept people without an MSc so don’t want to waste time & money.

equally, I need a way of developing computational experience in order to do a PhD & an MSc feels like the simplest way of doing that. however, I see some bioinformaticians on social media who only started coding/programming at PhD level - can anyone recommend this as a potential pathway into the discipline, esp if I was to find a PhD project that also leaned on wet lab research?

Hi everyone,
I'm currently starting my master’s at Wageningen University , where I work mainly on plant genetics, molecular markers, and bioinformatics/genomics in the agricultural field.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about future career options, especially remote work.
I was wondering how common fully remote bioinformatics jobs actually are, and whether people from a plant science background can realistically move into medical/healthcare bioinformatics.
I recently came across a Master’s program at University of Padua focused on medical bioinformatics, and it made me think : the computational foundations seem pretty similar (data analysis, genomics, statistics, pipelines, coding, etc.), even if the applications are different.
So I’m curious if are remote bioinformatics jobs actually common nowadays. Is it realistic to move from plant genomics/bioinformatics into medical biotech or healthcare? Which skills matter most for remote positions? what do you recommend in general, based on your experience and knowledge?
Thanks to anyone who replies : )

Hi, I hope everyone is having a lovely day. I am a South Korean national who graduated from Monash University with a degree in Bachelor of Science, majoring in biotechnology.

I am planning on building my career to a bioinformatician, or a relevant profession in Australia, and I currently have the option of pursuing either an honours, which is research-based, or master of bioinformatics in Melbourne University, a coursework. I would most likely pursue a phd in the future, and I have heard that science courseworks aren't really worth it, so I think a few people might think that I should just jump into honours.

However, given the lack of bioinformatics background, high research components of the unimelb bioinformatics masters, and the uncertainty of being able to pursue honours in bioinformatics-related research given my profile, I just wanted to ask if anyone has ever been in this course before, and if so, how was your experience? I would appreciate answers from other people, if you have any advice for me. Cheers.

I'm having trouble landing a position (academic or industry) as a ph.d with only academic experience. (even poorly paid postdoc positions are demanding top level experience and publications) And advice that I'm hearing over and over again is to get a contract or temporary position in industry to help bridge into a full time regular one. And social media is full of people crowing about their success stories sliding into a full time position after a contract.

But uh...where would I find one? Linkedin seems to have overwhelmingly mid senior level full time. Other sites like Handshake are similarly bare. The closest thing available are internships for current Ph.D students which I don't qualify for.

Checking with the websites of recruiters and they mostly have just low level manufacturing jobs driving around a forklift or compounding drugs that don't really fit my background and they never seem to get back to me when I contact them for help. The few contracts there appear to mostly be for wet lab manufacturing.

Where are these bounty of computational contract and temp jobs that are gating all these people to better work?

I am class 12th students from mp and just finished 12th and tried neet but scored 450 and don't wanna take drop so as I have intrest in biotechnology and bioinformatics then I want suggestion that should I take college away from my town which was holkar science College indore (250km) and IEHE bhopal (70km) ?

Hi everyone,
I’m an international student currently planning my healthcare and tech career path in the U.S., and I’d love to get some feedback on whether my plan is realistic and worth the investment.
My current plan is as follows:

1. Phase 1: Complete an Associate of Applied Science in Radiography. After graduation, I intend to use my 1-year OPT to work as a Radiologic Technologist to gain clinical experience and hopefully find an H-1B sponsor.
2. Phase 2: If I don't secure a sponsor within that year, I plan to bridge into a Bachelor’s in Biomedical Informatics (BMI). I’m specifically looking at STEM-designated programs (like the one at ASU) to qualify for the 3-year STEM OPT extension later on.
3. Phase 3: My long-term goal is to transition into Cancer Research, eventually pursuing a PhD in a field related to medical imaging informatics or computational oncology.
   My questions for the community:
   • Is the transition from clinical Radiography to a technical BMI degree common? Does having a clinical background provide a significant edge in the Health Informatics job market?
   • For those in the field, how is the H-1B sponsorship landscape for BMI/Health Informatics roles compared to frontline Rad Tech roles?
   • Does this "Clinical \rightarrow Tech \rightarrow Research" trajectory seem like a solid path for someone aiming to specialize in oncology?

Hey all!!!

I am quite disappointed 😔

I have a bachelor in Physics and a master in bioinformatics... I also have attended multiple workshops and am trying to gain as much knowledge on NGS analysis etc... I am also working as a data engineer in the industry....

Not quite sure what all bioinformatics jobs want... Is there any other path that I can follow so I can work on bioinformatics/computational biology field? Or should I keep working as a data engineer which doesn't fascinate me.

Not quite sure what to do because I have been rejected by many positions that it didn't require a phd... I didn't get even an interview