You Can Be Anything › All careers › Space & Emerging Fields
Bioinformatics Scientist
Uses computing to analyze biological data — decoding genomes and discovering drug targets.
Did you know?
The Human Genome Project took 13 years (1990 to 2003) and about $3 billion to read the full human DNA code.
How subjects help
- Biology: Understand what genes and proteins do so you know which patterns in the data really matter.
- Computer Science: Write programs that line up billions of DNA letters to find where genomes differ.
- Mathematics: Build models that predict how a protein will fold from its chain of building blocks.
- Statistics: Tell real gene differences between sick and healthy people apart from random chance.
A famous name
Margaret Oakley Dayhoff: Called the mother of bioinformatics; she built the first protein sequence database in 1965.
Try it yourself: Invent a way to sort leaves
- Lay out your collection and look closely at every one. (Do not pick berries or mushrooms, and wash your hands afterwards.)
- Split them into two groups using one question, like "smooth edge or jagged edge?"
- Keep splitting each group with a new question until every item is on its own.
- Give your key to someone else. Can they use your questions to find the same item?
Scientists sort living things this way. A good key lets anyone identify a species just by answering questions.
Also try: Solve the case of the missing biscuit.
Known for it in
USA, UK, Germany, China, Switzerland