• Question: Why did you decide to be a computational biologist rather than workign in a different area of science?

    Asked by roberts1 to Iain, Gioia, Jo, Leo, Mariam on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by gthomas.
    • Photo: Iain Moal

      Iain Moal answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I moved into computational biology recently really. I did theoretical chemistry at uni, so I didn’t have much lab experience. I was pretty good at programming though. I did a summer research project with an astrophysical chemistry lab, and it was quite fun. I had done a project on computational molecular biology which I really enjoyed. For my Masters degree, I did a year-long project on quantum chemistry, which was really tough. So, after thinking it through, I decided to go down the biology route, because I thought I would like it the most.

    • Photo: Mariam Orme

      Mariam Orme answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I don’t think this question is meant for me since I’m not a computational biologist!

    • Photo: Joanna Watson

      Joanna Watson answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      When I was at university we used to have to do quite a bit of laboratory work and I never really enjoyed it. Some people like working in a lab, but I find it really boring.

      I’ve always liked learning the theory behind how the body works and why we get diseases and I’ve also always enjoyed interpreting data.

      When I found out that there is a whole branch of medical science that is all about interpreting the patterns in diseases I knew that was the job for me.

Comments