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A comment on Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020? by sansnomme on Sunday January 05, 2020 @12:35PM (#21962495)
(Assuming a CS background) To do anything useful/fun/interesting in bio you should have a strong understanding of the Central Dogma, once you understand that you can move on to the rest. Many here recommend building gene analytics and other similar software/SaaS. I don't recommend it because you learn absolutely nothing from those low hanging fruits. Genetics and its relation to CS, at a sufficiently low level, is mostly string manipulation and search. There is a market if you are willing to build and do sales but it's hardly exciting. Better to get some actual wet lab experience and understanding, than become yet another "data science" biotech startup. We have had enough of those in healthcare already, tons of so-called "health tech" companies that were merely performing analytics on wearables. Profitable? Maybe. Exciting and innovative? No.

Some reading material:

Synthetic biology: A Primer

An introduction to systems biology (get the 2020 edition)

O'Reilly: Biobuilder

Molecular biology of the Gene

Campbell's Biology

YouTube Channels:

The Thought Emporium

Josiah Zayner

Khan Academy Biology

Biology Professor

Shomus Biology

(The first two deal exclusively with bioengineering)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020? by madhadron on Sunday January 05, 2020 @07:52PM (#21965518)
> Molecular biology of the Gene

I really, really wish this book would stop being recommended. It doesn't teach any biology, just a lot of random facts disconnected from reality about a fictional average eukaryotic cell. Nowhere in it do you build an intuition about working with biological systems.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020? by sansnomme on Sunday January 05, 2020 @11:28PM (#21966457)
Sorry I meant Molecular Biology of the Cell. I think it's meant as a reference more than anything else. Bio is like ML in that it moves very quickly, so there is the need for constantly updated evergreen texts.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020? by madhadron on Monday January 06, 2020 @02:27AM (#21967266)
Whoops, I thought you meant MBoC as well. I also wish everyone would stop recommending that one, too. I don't think it's even a good reference. I can safely say that I never got any useful information out if it during the course of my graduate work in biology.
[ Parent | on HN ]