BOL

Hi Ashwin,

I found these definition on NIH website:

Bioinformatics: Research, development, or application of computational tools and approaches for expanding the use of biological, medical, behavioral or health data, including those to acquire, store, organize, archive, analyze, or visualize such data.

Computational Biology: The development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioral, and social systems.

Source: http://www.bisti.nih.gov/docs/CompuBioDef.pdf

Thanks

Hi Ashwin,

I'm a comparative genomicist. Hmmm noo.. Specifically, a bioinfomatician/computational biologist; ... I work on biological problems. Confusing right hmmm. Computational techniques are a set of computational tools developed by smart programmers is my arsenal which I apply to problems that interest me. In other word -- to test a biological hypothesis and validate them.

So, what should be the definition? You are a biologist if you work primarily on biological problems. But once you use any methods you become a bioinformatician/information scientist. If you apply computational theory and programming language to develop a tool/software and play with information of biological origin; then you are computational biologist (ditto biological programmer). There's no such thing as an iron-clad biological definition? In a decade to come you gonna listen "quantitative biology", "systems biology", "contemporary biology" or "modern biology" will become popular and reflect the fact we're all drinking the same math-bio smoothie.

Thanks

Dear Ashwin,

There is a simple difinition:

Computational biologist: Programmer learn biology and do research.

Bioinformatics: Biologist learn programming and do research.

I guess this make sense.

Thanks

Hi There,

Here is funny but true classification:

I think that if you are doing analysis but not getting first author papers you are a "bioinformatics analyst", if are getting first-author papers you are might be either a "computational biologist" or a "bioinformatician".

Please check out the google trend http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=computational+biologist,+bioinformatician,+bioinformaticist&cmpt=q

Thanks