Dr Altan Kara is a Bioinformatics specialist at the faculty of Gene Engineering and Biotechnology Institute at TUBITAK MAM Research Center. His research interest revolves around the cancer informatics and computational aided-drug design. I applaud Dr Altan for clearly setting out both his expectations of people that join his lab/university in addition to listing his responsibilities to his research members at TUBITAK MAM Research Institüte. Hopefully, this interview will prove useful to others in the field, especially to those who are just starting their bioinformatics careers.

You can find out more about Dr Altan by visiting his (well documented) lab page (http://gmbe.mam.tubitak.gov.tr/en) and BOL page http://bioinformaticsonline.com/profile/altan . And now, on to the BOL:“Tryst with a Bioinformatician” interview series ...

• What push you to join Computational Biology/Bioinformatics?

According to me, bioinformatics is the center of modern biological research and if a researcher wants to discover new biological insights by evaluating the globally produced biological data to derivate unified solutions for specific biological problems, learning bioinformatics is the only way to achieve this goal.

• What fascinates you about Computational Biology/Bioinformatics?

It's flexibility. As well known, there are highly diverse and complex biological questions are waiting to be enlightened and it's impossible to bring solutions to this diversity by using similar approaches. Thus, the employed method has to be unique for the targeted biological problem and by using bioinformatics tools this can be easily achieved. 

• What is the one word you would use to describe yourself?

Bioinformatician. :)

• Can you please describe your research work in a nutshell for BOL users.

At my current Institute, I am working in the field of cancer bioinformatics. Briefly, the overall aim of the project which I am working for (AKMARK (Project CODE:5153403)) is, applying a bioinformatics-supported genome, transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome analysis to reveal the molecular profile of the disease through an integrated approach, and to develop an early diagnosis and scanning kit based on this profile. Alterations in the gene, transcript, protein, and metabolite profiles between normal tissue, normal tissue adjoined to the tumor (reactive stroma), tumor tissue, lymph node metastasis, and blood samples taken from the same patient and the reflection of these changes in some other selected body fluids will be revealed within the scope of the project. The molecular structures involved in the development and progression of NSCLC will be determined and relations with the clinical, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging and histology will be made. The development of a diagnostic kit for immediate clinical purposes and an electrochemical biosensor for quick on-site applications are targeted through the development of a number of antibody and aptamer formed against the most specific biomarker selected from the panel.

• Is there anything else we should know about you and your research?

Besides AKMARK, I am also in preparation of having a side project that aims for the development of a computational method to design inhibitors for prokaryotic two-component systems. In this project, I will be in collaboration with Prof. Maria Kontoyianni, SIUE: Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, School of Pharmacy.

• What was your greatest scientific disappointment in life till now?

So far I do not experience any memorable scientific disappointment in my life. :)

• What major research challenges and problems did you face yet? How did you handle them?

The major challenge which I faced so far in my scientific career was predicting the interaction between the prokaryotic two-component proteins. To be able to accurately predict the interactions between these proteins, I create a meta-predictor by using a support vector machine. By using this technique I integrated six different protein-protein interaction methods in a way to cover disadvantage of one method with the advantage of another one. The meta-predictor which I developed during this work is accessible via http://metapred2cs.ibers.aber.ac.uk/ and for more detailed information about the system the articles with the PMID IDs; PMID: 27378293 and PMID: 26384938 can be read.

• What's your all-time favourite bioinformatics package, and why?

For me, the best bioinformatics package is R/Bioconductor. The reason why I like this package is, it provides lots of useful tools for comprehensive analysis and comparison of high-throughput experimental data in an integrated manner and besides lots of the packages it provides, it is open source and also open for development. As a result, it provides strong and flexible ways to do science.

• In bioinformatics, do you see yourself in which of the following roles-scientist, analyst, developer, engineer or pure academician?

Scientist / Developer.

• What will you like to accomplish in next five years / ten years?

For my current research, I would like to design a pipeline to automatically integrate and analyse omics data for cancer research which will be specifically aiming for biomarker and novel drug target discovery. In addition to this, I also like to develop another pipeline for prokaryotic TCS protein structure prediction and inhibitor design.

• When you will be retired, what would you tell next generation bioinformaticians?

Bioinformatics is not all about scripting and researchers who study in this field should never expect a tool to do their analyses for them. Besides computational skills, a bioinformatician must have a strong biological background in his/her research area which will allow them to understand if anything went wrong during their run by only looking at the results instead of just blindly trusting the output of the bioinformatics tools.

• What you always miss in bioinformatics when you will no longer working in this field?

Bioinformatics is open to doing multi-discipliner research with scientists all around the world. As a result, while I studying in this field I can interactively learn a lot from wide range research community. I think this is the one thing which I will miss the most.

• If there will be bioinformatics company owned by you in future, What are your company focus and aim?

With the increasing amount of data in databases, there is already a massive need for effective methods to eliminate the manipulated data and reach to clean/useful information. As days pass, the requirement of data mining will be the first step of any research project. For this reason, the major goal of my bioinformatics company will be developing effective tools to eliminate manipulated datasets and information that exist in the literature and provide trustworthy clean information/datasets for researchers.

• How much bioinformatics change in 2050, according to your wild imagination?

Bioinformatics is a field that constantly and dynamically changes. As the bioinformatics progress, new tools and methods become available and they provide a better application of existing methods or totally new methods that offer an alternative solution to various biological problems. A long with these updates, developers also provide easy to use GUIs for most of the tools. Considering this, if the field carries on developing like this, every single researcher with a strong biological background can be able to perform bioinformatics analyses by him/herself without needing a professional help. As a result, almost all of the bioinformaticians will be responsible just for development of new methods/tools.

• What would one piece of advice you give someone who's trying to reinvent themselves and enter into bioinformatics sector?

Bioinformatics is a wide field with a lot of career options. Thus, if a researcher likes to step into this field first he/she should be clear about the branch of the bioinformatics they like to study in. Following to this decision they should first learn at least one programing language and investigate the ways of how other researcher employed that language in their researches and WHY? A researcher, in this field, should never create and use copy paste scripts but always must understand WHY the other researcher worked in that way. Knowing the answer of this question is the only way to learn bioinformatics. Besides, a researcher in the field of bioinformatics (from any branch) must always be good about the environmental control. In other words, one should always easily control input output directories, modify files or directories, annotate and modify employed scripts during the research and should not allow any confusion during the different stages of the research. Finally, they should not blindly trust the output of a tool/software but do a benchmarking test for each of the tools which they decided to utilise in their research. In addition to this, even if the tools pass the benchmarking, researchers should have a good biological background in their field to tell if anything when wrong during the process by only looking the output(s) of the employed pipelines/packages/tools.  

for applicants interested in performing high-quality research on the connection between software engineering, database systems, and theoretical computer science as well as their applications in bioinformatics and business informatics. The research programme will start on October 1, 2013 until 30.09.2016. The period of employment is governed by the Fixed Term Research Contracts Act (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz – WissZeitVG).

This research programme is a joint activity of Professors Lehner, Assmann, Baader, Baier, Schill, Schlegel, Schroeder, and Strahringer at TU Dresden. Alongside their research, an individual mentoring and qualification approach are arranged with specialized courses that prepare them optimally for their research, a research seminar where they can meet internationally renowned researchers in the field, and soft skills and language courses.

Requirements: Applicants should have an excellent academic record, and hold a MSc (or an equivalent university degree) in computer science or related disciplines (such as mathematics, bioinformatics or business informatics). Fluency in spoken and written English is required. Applicants with a good knowledge of software engineering or one of the application areas mentioned above are preferred. TU Dresden is committed to increase the proportion of women in research.

Applications from women are particularly welcome. The same applies to disabled people.

Please send enquiries to: wolfgang.lehner@tu-dresden.de

Applications consist of a CV, the names of two referees, transcipts of documents summarizing their academic performance, and a statement of interest. Application by email in pdf format is preferred, and should be submitted to wolfgang.lehner@tu-dresden.de in an electronically signed and encrypted form by July 30, 2013 (stamped arrival date of the university central mail service applies). Alternatively, applications can be sent to: TU Dresden, Fakultät Informatik, Institut für Systemarchitektur, Prof.  Dr.-Ing.  Wolfgang Lehner, 01062 Dresden, Germany.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to Dresden in the middle of August to give a presentation on their Master’s thesis and discuss their research interest with the participating professors. Candidates that have not yet finished their degree when they send in their application should send preliminary transcripts of their academic records as well as a letter by the thesis adviser that comments on their progress so far and on the expected date of completion of their MSc or equivalent degree.

We are now seeking a postdoc scholarship holder with strong background in transcriptomics to use this large collection of data for integrative studies. Focus will be on advanced bioinformatics and statistical analysis of data from high-throughput sequencing including integration with the other platforms.

The scholarship holder must have a PhD with an outstanding research and publication record and will be selected based on her/his excellence and her/his skills. A PhD should have been awarded less than five years before the deadline of the application. The scholarship holder must have a strong background in bioinformatics, computer science, computational biology or equivalent with a profound knowledge about biology and biostatistics.

Your complete application must be received at KTH no later than 2018-01-15.

https://www.kth.se/en/om/work-at-kth/stipendier/postdoctoral-scholarship-in-bioinformatics-with-focus-on-transcriptomics-and-data-integration-1.779571

Link @ http://lgfus.ca/public/

Faculty facilitator/Founder Director for two start-up companies (Leadinvent incubated at IIT, Delhi from 2006-2009 & Novoinformatics, under incubation at IIT Delhi since 2011).

Research Interest
Genome Analysis, Protein Structure Prediction and Drug Design.

Link @ http://www.scfbio-iitd.res.in/

Address of the bookmark: http://readiab.org/

Data mining commonly involves four classes of tasks:

• Classification - Arranges the data into predefined groups. For example, an email program might attempt to classify an email as legitimate or spam. Common algorithms include decision tree learning, nearest neighbor, naive Bayesian classification and neural networks.
• Clustering - Is like classification but the groups are not predefined, so the algorithm will try to group similar items together.
• Regression - Attempts to find a function which models the data with the least error.
• Association rule learning - Searches for relationships between variables. For example a supermarket might gather data on customer purchasing habits. Using association rule learning, the supermarket can determine which products are frequently bought together and use this information for marketing purposes. This is sometimes referred to as market basket analysis.
• From experience, I can say that is one of the most frustrating positions to be in. Data mining is a huge field and can easily be bewildering for a beginner. However, high through-put techniques in molecular biology require, more and more, that bioinformatics is required to interpret the data. Furthermore, people working in bioinformatics generally come from computer science, or biology backgrounds. Data mining, however, involves statistics to one degree or another, which means entering a field that is may not be your strong point.
• Excel is fine for creating graphs. If you’re serious about data mining though, you’ll need something more heavy weight. I use R, free, and with good data mining packages such as vegan and labdsv. For beginners R can be impenetrable, I recommend this book an introduction to R as well as the underlying statistics.
• Any of us can rush head on into a land of support vector machines, hidden markov models and neural networks. But coming back to the first point, what are you trying to prove? Always question what are you doing, how does it fit in to the wider picture? Try to regularly review, and keep track of where you are going? This will prevent you from falling into data mining despair.

Data Mining Resources on the net:

A laboratory of data mining and bioinformatics is headed by Prof. Ambuj Singh. There are currently seven graduate students in the research group. Our research focuses on image informatics and scalable querying and mining of graphs.For more detail visit: http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~dbl/

Here are the materials (Lecture notes) from several past courses on data mining and/or Web mining by Stanford: For detail visit: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/mining/mining.html
Statistical Data Mining Tutorial Slides by Andrew Moore The following links point to a set of tutorials on many aspects of statistical data mining, including the foundations of probability, the foundations of statistical data analysis, and most of the classic machine learning and data mining algorithms. For detail visit: http://www.autonlab.org/tutorials/

A tutorial on Introduction to Data Mining for Discovering hidden value in your data warehouse:http://www.thearling.com/text/dmwhite/dmwhite.htm 
Wiki Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining
Bioinformatics with Clementine http://www.spss.ch/upload/1051192224_inseratClemBio.pdf 
Causal Data Mining in Bioinformatics by Ioannis Tsamardinos: http://www.forth.gr/ics/bmi/In_the_News/2007/EN69-4.pdf

Report on ACM Text Mining in Bioinformatics (TMBIO 006) http://www.sigir.org/forum/2007J/2007j_sigirforum_song.pdf 
BIOKDD 2002: Recent Advances in Data Mining for 
Bioinformatics: http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigkdd/explorations/issue4-2/zaki.pdf

Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics: 

Tools for Mining and Applying Genetic Information in Patient Care:http://www.biomedtechalliance.org/pdfs/03_03_05/03_03_05.pdf

DATA MINING OF MICROARRAY DATABASES FOR HUMAN LUNG CANCER: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.106.385&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Towards knowledge-based gene expression data mining: http://www.ailab.si/blaz/papers/2007-JBI-BellazziZupan.pdf

DRAFT Accepted for publication in 'Data Mining in Bioinformatics'
Jason Wang, Mohammed Zaki, Hannu Toivonen, and Dennis Shasha (Eds.), Springer:http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/htoivone/pubs/gene_mapping_by_pattern_discovery.pdf

Data Mining and Text Mining for Bioinformatics: Proceedings of the European Workshop: http://www.rok.informatik.hu-berlin.de/wbi/research/publications/2003/proceedings_ws_mining.pdf

Biological Network Analysis:

Graph Mining in Bioinformatics: http://agbs.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/wikis/bg/BNA-5.pdf.

Text mining in bioinformatics: http://agbs.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/wikis/bg/4.pdf

Some datamining books that are available on google books:

Data mining and bioinformatics: first international workshop, VDMB 2006 By Mehmet M. Dalkilic

Data mining: concepts and techniques By Jiawei Han, Micheline Kamber

Courses

Old courses (2012-2014)

Metagenomics Workshop

2015 November - Uppsala
2016 November - Uppsala
2017 November - Uppsala

Introduction to Bioinformatics Using NGS Data

2015 February - Uppsala 
2015 May - Gothenburg
2015 September - Uppsala
2015 November - Lund
2016 January - Uppsala
2016 April - Linköping
2016 September - Uppsala
2016 November - Umeå
2017 January - Uppsala
2017 May - Gothenburg
2017 September - Lund
2017 November - Uppsala
2018 February - Uppsala

Introduction to Genome Annotation

2015 April - Uppsala
2016 April - Uppsala
2017 April - Uppsala
2018 May - Uppsala

De Novo Genome Assembly

2016 November - Uppsala
2017 November - Uppsala

RNA-seq course

2015 October - Uppsala
2016 April - Uppsala
2016 October - Uppsala
2017 March - Uppsala
2017 November - Uppsala
RNAseq tutorials

R Programming Foundations for Life Scientists

2016 November - Uppsala
2017 Mars - Uppsala

Single cell RNA sequencing analysis

2017 October - Uppsala

Address of the bookmark: https://scilifelab.github.io/courses/

Genomes and genomics:

Bioinformatics and Genomics:

Structural genomics tutorial:

Comparative Genomics Tutorial:

GENOME TUTORIAL:

Tools and resources for identifying protein families, domains and motifs

Bioinformatics Tools 
Tips, Tutorials, and Terminology for Using Selected Resources in Genome Database Guide:

A Web-Based Comparative Genomics Tutorial for Investigating Microbial Genomes:

Free Online Tutorials Teach Anyone How to Use Genome Databases:

Circos to create concise, explanatory, unique and print-ready visualizations of your data:

Genomics and Comparative Genomics Learning Module:

Computational Challenges in Comparative Genomics

A Tutorial:

A Comparative Genomics Resource for Grains:

PLAZA: A Comparative Genomics Resource to Study Gene and Genome Evolution in Plants:

VISTA:

Software for Genomics

1. Artemis Artemis is a free genome viewer and annotation tool that allows visualization of sequence features and the results of analyses within the context of the sequence, and its six-frame translation.
2. Chromas It will display and prints chromatogram files from ABI automated DNA sequencers, and Staden SCF files which the analysis programs for ALF, Li-Cor and Visible Genetics OpenGene sequencers can create.
3. Glimmer A system for finding genes in microbial DNA, especially the genomes of bacteria and archaea.Glimmer (Gene Locator and Interpolated Markov Modeler) uses interpolated Markov models (IMMs) to identify the coding regions and distinguish them from noncoding DN
4. Glimmer HMM A fast and accurate gene finder based on a GHMM architecture, developed specifically for eukaryotes. It incorporates splice site models adapted from the GeneSplicer program and uses interpolated Markov models for evaluating the coding regions.
5. Glimmer M A gene finder derived from Glimmer, but developed specifically for eukaryotes. It is based on a dynamic programming algorithm that considers all combinations of possible exons for inclusion in a gene model and chooses the best of these combinations. The d
6. MUMmer MUMmer is a system for rapidly aligning entire genomes, whether in complete or draft form.
7. pDRAW pDRAW32 is being developed as a free time hobby project. It is far from finished, but as it has reached a point where it could be helpful for many labs, it is now available to the scientific community.
8. Sequin Sequin is a stand-alone software tool developed by the NCBI for submitting and updating entries to the GenBank, EMBL, or DDBJ sequence databases. It is capable of handling simple submissions that contain a single short mRNA sequence, and complex submissio
9. Staden The Staden Package consists of a series of tools for DNA sequence preparation (pregap4), assembly (gap4), editing (gap4) and DNA/protein sequence analysis (spin).

For more software @ http://bioinformaticsonline.com/bookmarks/view/926/list-of-popular-bioinformatics-softwaretools