Re: Where to learn about Bioinformatics?

[Bukowski]

I am a 'praciticing' bioinformatician - and the best place to learn is on the job. I know that sounds trite, but you already have the coding skills - what you seem to need is a background in biology.

You could, for instance, pick up "Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills" an O'Reilly title, and skip the programming bits - and become familiar with the tools biologists use for data analysis.

You would be well advised to spend some time poking around the major source of biological data online the NCBI (National Centre for Biotechnology Information) at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

If you're looking for a real introduction into the bioinformatics world then its well worth looking at:
Bioinformatics Sequence and Genome Analysis from CSHL Press. There is an associated website at http://www.bioinformaticsonline.org/

That book will link you out to the scientific papers underlying much of bioinformatics, and pacing yourself with this book would stand you in good stead.

How about contributing to a package at the open source site http://www.bioinformatics.org

Keep an eye on lecture series going on at local Universities, try to attend talks on computational biology and bioinformatics.

Read books, explore resources, get involved. Learn BioPerl (http://bio.perl.org). Get a good overview of MySQL if you don't have one yet - its frequently deployed by bioinformaticians.

Above all enjoy - its a great field, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Bukowski - aka Dan ([e-mail])
"Coffee for the mind, Pizza for the body, Sushi for the soul" -Userfriendly