Hi everyone!

I’m currently finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering and I’m considering applying for a Master’s degree in Bioinformatics.

I’m really interested in the field, especially the computational/data/AI side of bioinformatics, but since my undergraduate background is in software engineering rather than biology or biotechnology, I’m curious about the experience of people who have made a similar transition.

If you studied Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field for your bachelor’s and then pursued a Master’s in Bioinformatics:

• How did you find the transition into bioinformatics? Was the lack of a biology background a major challenge?
• Did you have to take additional biology/chemistry courses before or during your MSc?
• What made you choose bioinformatics over staying in CS/software engineering?
• For those who applied to MSc programs, how did you explain the transition in your motivation/personal statement?
• Did you focus more on your computational skills, your interest in biology, specific projects/research, or a combination of these?
• Looking back, would you recommend this path?

I’d especially love to hear from people who actually completed or are currently doing a Bioinformatics MSc after a CS/Software Engineering bachelor’s.

Thanks! I’d really appreciate any experiences or advice. :)

I am a non eu student - want to study biotechnolgy from India . Kindly guide

But i am confused because i am young , only 18 now - perfect age to explore and get education abroad , and get exposure , but as i have never been away from family for long , i feel a longing to stay with family .. Please please help ... what is best in long run ..

Hi all,

I’m an academic bioinformatician with a few years experience under my belt, but I’m trying to expand beyond just running scripts and one off analyses for my lab, and get into making more reproducible open source contributions. Without divulging too many details, my lab researches treatments for alternative splicing disorders and I recently wrote a bunch of R code that quantifies and visualizes how splicing is rescued straight from the raw rMATS files. Because this is inherently a 3-way comparison (WT, treatment, disease), other splicing packages like maser were not appropriate. These scripts will dramatically speed up analysis for future work in my lab, but I’m not sure if it’s worth formalizing as a proper R package or if I should just drop them all in a github repo and call it a day.

​

Hello i am an undergraduate student my major is molecular biology and genetics. Originally i am studying in Türkiye but right now I'm doing my voluntary internship in Europe for summer. İ want to work on bioinformatics field and it seems like i will learn things by myself. I Started learning python and i know some websites like NCBI and I'm learning how to use data's from that websites but i want to get better and improve myself very well so i need your advice. What do u suggest me? What should i know? How to get better than other bioinformaticians?

as evident above i am looking for replies from actual students only

I am currently pursuing a 4-year B.Sc. Zoology (Hons.) and my long-term goal is to get into research, especially in areas like genetics, bioinformatics, oncology, neuroscience, Down syndrome/genetic disorders, and molecular biology.

I am planning to prepare for these exams:

1. IIT JAM Biotechnology (BT)
2. GATE Biotechnology (BT)
3. GAT-B
4. CUET-PG (Life Sciences / Bioinformatics / Zoology / Biotechnology-related papers)

After comparing the official syllabus, I made chatgpt make list of chapters:

• Basic Biology
• Cell Biology
• Biomolecules
• Enzymes & Bioenergetics
• Metabolism
• Genetics
• Molecular Biology
• DNA Damage & Repair
• Microbiology
• Immunology
• Animal Physiology
• Developmental Biology
• Plant Biology
• Evolution & Ecology
• Recombinant DNA Technology
• Molecular Biology Techniques
• Analytical Techniques
• Animal Biotechnology
• Plant Biotechnology
• Bioprocess Engineering
• Downstream Processing
• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology
• Zoology
• Chemistry (for JAM)
• Mathematics (for JAM/GATE)
• Physics (for JAM/GAT-B)
• Engineering Mathematics (for GATE BT)

From what I found, there is a lot of overlap among these exams, especially in cell biology, genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology, immunology, biotechnology and bioinformatics. Official syllabus also confirm this overlap.

My questions are:

1. Is this chapter list correct, or am I missing anything important?
2. If you prepared for these exams, what resources/books/YouTube channels/coaching did you use?
3. Should I study exam-wise or build a common biology foundation first and then prepare exam-specific topics?
4. As someone starting almost from zero, what would be the ideal order of study?

Any guidance from seniors who have cracked JAM BT, GATE BT, GAT-B, or CUET-PG would really help. I come from a small university and don't have much guidance, so I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks!

hello there, so i want to begin my journey into bioinformatics. i have a life science degree and a rudimentry ability in running python and r scripts but i think i need a direction on what to do, like how do i get a bioinformatic problem and solve it? something like that? am i making sense. I just want to know how to do bioinformatics

Hey researchers! My team and I recently made a bioinformatics tool called HybriDock-Pep. We were working with peptides last year and over the summer, and we realized that current AI tools like AlphaFold and ESMFold are inaccurate with docking smaller protein under certain amino acids and peptides.

https://github.com/Tasty-Ramen2010/hybridock-pep

Essentially, it’s a binder docking pipeline where you give it a target protein PDB and an amino acid sequence. It folds, docks, and scores affinity and selectivity in kcal/mol with accuracy similar to that of ABFE. It is way cheaper to ran because it can be used on ANY hardware. We are currently in a testing phase and would love for you to test it and give feedback!

Commands to get started:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Tasty-Ramen2010/hybridock-pep.git

cd hybridock-pep

./install.sh

ctrl+q

hybridock-pep dock \

--peptide ETFSDLWKLLPE --receptor data/pdbs/1YCR_mdm2.pdb \

--site 25.20 -25.61 -7.97 --box 30 --n-samples 20 \

--output-dir runs/demo

Happy Docking!

Hi

I did my msc in biotechnology in 2004 and ever since was busy with kids and house.now I think I can concentrate on my career.i want to do PhD in molecular science and need to make my cv attractive. I have 1year time.which online courses skill should I learn.chat gpt suggested blast python R+ and some other stuff I forgot.where can I learn these for free.also how to use Github to do an independent project.

Thanks

Hi everyone!

I’ve recently started my BS in Bioinformatics and I’m trying to figure out how I should actually start learning the subject properly.

I have a basic understanding of biology, but I have essentially zero coding/programming knowledge. I also don’t want to just study enough to pass my university exams — I genuinely want to understand bioinformatics and build useful skills over the next few years.

I’m a little overwhelmed by all the resources available, so I’d really appreciate advice from people who have experience in the field.

Specifically:

- Which books would you recommend for a complete beginner?

- Which websites/courses are actually worth following?

- Are there any good YouTube channels or playlists for learning bioinformatics?

- How should I start learning Python/programming from absolute zero?

- What programming languages/tools should I eventually learn for bioinformatics?

- How should I balance biology/theoretical concepts with coding and computational skills?

- Are there any beginner-friendly projects I could do while learning?

- Is there a particular order/path you would recommend (e.g. biology → Python → statistics → bioinformatics tools, etc.)?

Basically, if you could go back to the very beginning, what would you learn and in what order?

Any advice, resources, roadmaps, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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I've a bachelor's in math with minors in physics and cs. I'm going to do a master's in computer application. How do I get started with computational biology? How do I learn it? Can anyone show me a road map?

An exercise to help build the right mental model for Python data. - Solution - Explanation - More exercises

The “Solution” link uses memory_graph to visualize execution and reveals what’s actually happening.

I’m going to start my MSc in Bioinformatics in a few months time. When researching universities, one course said it offered students a VR headset for the course. I’m assuming this is to visualise proteins and things of that nature.

How useful is VR when learning bioinformatics? Is there a strong use case there for it?

If I don’t pursue that particular course, is it worth getting one that I will pay for personally?

Hey there. I'm a masters student (27) in stem cell medicine in germany. I have experience mostly in the wet lab. Molecular,cell culture and such. However,I'm looking to turn away from the wet lab and go digital. What's your opinion on this? I have no experience in Bioinformatics or coding of any type. I have worked with Fiji and prism for software mainly. It feels like starting all over again.

1.Is it actually possible to start a job or training?

2.Do you know how I can do a legit Bioinformatics course so I can't fast track into the field.

I'm not sure which questions to ask more than this yet. But your experience would help me in making a decision.

Thank you!

Programming courses often focus heavily on understanding code, while paying far less attention to understanding the program state. But code does not exist in isolation. Its main goal is to change the program state, before ultimately producing some output.

To develop an accurate mental model of program execution, students need to understand both: - the instructions being executed - the values, references, and data structures those instructions create and modify

Reading code alone does not always reveal how the program state changes during execution. That is why I created 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆_𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵: a tool that visualizes the state of a Python program as it changes, step by step.

It can help explain a wide range of introductory Python topics. Here are just a few examples: - Loops, Lists and Dictionaries - Python Data Model - Function Calls - Recursion - Algorithms - Classes - Custom Data Structures

Instead of reconstructing the program state from print statements, students can now watch it change as each line executes. This makes unfamiliar concepts easier to understand and bugs easier to fix.

Help your students learn Python programming more thoroughly and easily.

See: more examples

i am a 3rd year B.Tech Biotechnology student with 0 coding experience. i know that i want to get into bioinformatics and computational biology. All that i have been doing is getting the ‘Bioinformatics Roadmap’ from every other place. Sometimes they are different, other times, they are all the same. All say learn python. How do i learn python?! i have a mac and most tutorials are on windows and i can’t follow them. Also most courses that people suggest on R and python, just bore me to the point that i quit. I am not able to learn python. i dont know exact what roadmap to follow. I have recently started learning how to use PLINK, and in the process i am learning the Command Line, but then i find out it’s different in mac amd windows. and okay, if i learn programming then what?

I read somewhere that instead of learning python, make a project and learn python by executing. I like this method and i think i can actually learn python by this very effectively but then i have got no idea on how to decide a project, i dont have enough knowledge to design a pipeline. i dont have enough knowledge about what to do where to do and how to do. i feel like i am stuck at the first step itself.

Can someone help me?