By: Albert M Mahaffey III M.S. in Biotechnology with Bioinformatics

Albert M Mahaffey III M.S. in Biotechnology with Bioinformatics — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 20:08:22 +0000

Bioinformatics is data science, unlike biotechnology, bioinformatics is purely dry lab work which predominately focuses on developing algorithms and codes to process, analyze, and assemble biological data. Bioinformaticians uses already available tools and terminal(shell) to execute data but have minimal understanding and do not code. Biostatistics on the other hand requires coding in the R language as well as SAS and ANOVA at the advance level so yes programming is used in R. A Bioinformaticists is a programmer that utilizes Python, R, Perl, Java, ML, ANN, database systems, etc. to visualize and manipulate biological, chemical, and pharmaceutical data. To truly master bioinformatics or biostatistics you need to be proficient in a programming language. My advice to anyone getting into Bioinformatics is to master R, Python, and ML because they are very few positions for just Bioinformaticians and typically most employers want you to have a master’s in bioinformatics but if you master the primary programming languages you should be able to find work in data science fairly easy.

Comments on: Data Science vs. Bioinformatics: [They’re Not The Same]

By: Albert M Mahaffey III M.S. in Biotechnology with Bioinformatics