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I'm actually trying to get into bioinformatics myself. Here are some of the resources I've been using: - Khan Academy (Biology, Chemistry, Statistics, Proba

by hbien 15y ago

I'm actually trying to get into bioinformatics myself. Here are some of the resources I've been using: - Khan Academy (Biology, Chemistry, Statistics, Probability) - Molecular and Cell Biology for Dummies <-- includes overview of lab techniques like PCR and electrophoresis - Bioinformatics for Dummies - R Cookbook - Molecular Biology of the Cell <-- expensive textbook, very detailed I was pretty surprised to see a lot of stats being used. I'm sure other people can recommend better resources for bio-hacking instead of bioinformatics.

bh42222 15y ago
If you are a good programmer you ought to know math and statistic. I would suggest trying to learn biology or chemistry like anyone going for a degree in either or both. Look into what books and other publications they read. Or just go back to school and add a squishy degree to your CS degree. Or do the equivalent of that on your own. I would say that is way better than Bioinformatics for Dummies.
VladRussian 15y ago
NCBI is pretty good (i'd say definitive) resource (and time sink :). For example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20260/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20260/ or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/education/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/education/ or just http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
ndespres 15y ago
When you're experimenting with bioinformatics (specifically in R), are there sample data sets you can run queries on? What have you been using?
- hbien 15y ago
  The great thing about bioinformatics is that there's so much data available online for free. Here are some links: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ - sequences, papers, and so much more http://www.expasy.org/ http://smd.stanford.edu/ - microarray data http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/ - not biology related but good data sets to play with R To navigate NCBI databases and learn file formats, you can read their documentation (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/education/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/education/) or get any bioinformatics book.
  - ndespres 15y ago
    Thanks very much for the helpful links!

by hbien 15y ago

bh42222 15y ago

If you are a good programmer you ought to know math and statistic. I would suggest trying to learn biology or chemistry like anyone going for a degree in either or both. Look into what books and other publications they read. Or just go back to school and add a squishy degree to your CS degree. Or do the equivalent of that on your own. I would say that is way better than Bioinformatics for Dummies.

VladRussian 15y ago

NCBI is pretty good (i'd say definitive) resource (and time sink :). For example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20260/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20260/ or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/education/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/education/ or just http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

ndespres 15y ago

When you're experimenting with bioinformatics (specifically in R), are there sample data sets you can run queries on? What have you been using?

hbien 15y ago
The great thing about bioinformatics is that there's so much data available online for free. Here are some links: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ - sequences, papers, and so much more http://www.expasy.org/ http://smd.stanford.edu/ - microarray data http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/ - not biology related but good data sets to play with R To navigate NCBI databases and learn file formats, you can read their documentation (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/education/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/education/) or get any bioinformatics book.
- ndespres 15y ago
  Thanks very much for the helpful links!