Why is the demand for Bioinformaticians on a rise?

I like to call Bioinformatics a courtship between Biology, Computer Science and Mathematics. It involves the integration of software tools and Mathematics to solve biological problems. The field of Bioinformatics existed before the Human Genome Project but revolutionised during the Human Genome Project. The Human Genome Project required enormous space to store the information primarily the nucleotide bases in the human genome. Since the human genome has a large number of bases, approximately 3 billion bases; it became impossible to store nucleotide information in books. To store this amount of information the scientists would require over 3,300 books, each with 1,000 pages and each page containing 1,000 letters. Computer Engineers and Data Scientists collaborated with Biologists and made enormous databases to store genomic information about the nucleotide bases and the gene annotations. Since then, rapid development in Bioinformatics has been observed. After the HGP, the cost of sequencing suddenly came down from $1 a base pair to $1 per 700 base pairs. Now the cost is $1 per 30,00,000 bases, i.e. 4.000-fold cheaper!

Computer Engineers and Data Scientists collaborated with Biologists and made enormous databases to store genomic information about the nucleotide bases and the gene annotations.

Common uses of Bioinformatics are finding homology between various genomic and proteomic sequences, finding Single Nucleotide Polymorphism, identifying genes and understanding their function, finding evolutionary relationships between various organisms, analysis of mutations and studying various diseases caused by mutations, analysis of protein expression, analysis of the cellular organisation and understanding molecular interactions. Bioinformatics also plays an important role in drug discovery and virtual drug trials. Gene therapies are also possible.

Life Sciences and Healthcare are the ever-increasing industries. In fact, in past years a decrement in these industries has not been observed. The era of digitisation leaves its trail in the field of Life Sciences and Healthcare as well. Bioinformatics is gaining a lot of importance since its birth. It provides plenty of opportunities, as it is associated with various fields such as Genomics, Proteomics, Medicine and Pharmacology. And because of this, various MNCs, Fortune 500 and Unicorn companies such as Pfizer, Novartis and Nike are hiring bioinformaticians all over the globe. There are different job opportunities for students with different knowledge backgrounds. These include Genomic Data Scientists, Big Data Analysts, Gene Analyst, Protein Analysts, Research Scientists, Database programmer, Bioinformatics Software developer, Pharmacogeneticians, Computational Biologist and many more. In fact, the salary packages of Bioinformaticians are higher than those of conventional biologists and researchers all over the globe. Major recruiters in India are Agilent Technology Inc, Roche, QIAGEN, PerkinElmer Inc and Strand Life Sciences. There are plenty of opportunities in Bioinformatics, all one requires is thorough knowledge and patience.

Bioinformatics is gaining a lot of importance since its birth. It provides plenty of opportunities, as it is associated with various fields such as Genomics, Proteomics, Medicine and Pharmacology.

About the author

Ayushi Wadhera is a third semester BTech Biotechnology student at Faculty of Engineering, Manav Rachna International Institute of Research Studies

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely author’s own and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha