Bioinformatics Jobs

What bioinformatics represents is even more complex than pronouncing it. To keep it simple, bioinformatics is the marriage of molecular biology with computer science. It's an exciting, relatively young and emerging science, in which computer information technology greatly helps to integrate, manage, analyze, and visualize genetic and other biological information.

The potential of bioinformatics for the good of society is enormous. Among other things, scientists apply this technology to

• Study biological processes in organisms
• Determine how these processes go wrong in diseases
• Discover and develop gene-based drugs to treat, cure and prevent human diseases

The growth of this biotech field is fueled in part by the Human Genome Project. Its objective is to identify all of the estimated 30,000 genes in human DNA, and determine the sequences of its 3 billion chemical bases, by the year 2005. (With the advances in technology resulting from this research, scientists may achieve this objective sooner.) Major players such as universities, government institutions and pharmaceutical companies around the world have joined this research, by forming bioinformatics groups. So have the direct competitors of the Project, creating a boom in bioinformatics job opportunities.

To work in the core of this hot science career, you must be a scientist or computational specialist. The scientist researches the biology, while the computational specialist writes the computer code. Possessing both sets of skills can't hurt. But there are many other bioinformatics job opportunities radiating from the core. For example, development of instrumentation, and computer software, hardware and network support, plus all the other supporting roles in the organizations that are sustaining bioinformatics research.

For more information and job opportunities, start with the biotech and life sciences job banks included in Science and Medicine Jobs and Healthcare Jobs, and the information technology job banks in Computer Jobs.