Biological Informatics question

[Krishtalka, Leonard]

For a start, look at "Impact of Emerging Technologies on the Biological
Sciences", NSF, 1995, Erich Bloch, Chair

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Curtis Clark [mailto:jcclark at CSUPOMONA.EDU]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 6:56 PM
> To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
> Subject: Re: Biological Informatics question
>
>
> At 09:07 AM 1/29/01, Ken Klemow wrote:
> >Does anybody know of any white papers or reports that point to the
> >need for students to have skills in uncovering on-line information in
> >organismal biology?  Does anybody have personal knowledge of recent
> >graduates using Biological Informatics skills.in jobs that they got
> >following graduation?
>
> Unfortunately I know of no specific studies. But I have been
> thinking about
> the issue in light of the replies to this.
>
> Let us not forget the COM in TAXACOM. Although we could well
> think of the
> acronym as "Taxonomists Communicating", it originally
> referred to computers
> in taxonomy. Systematics was one of the first
> non-mathematical fields to
> embrace computers (not that systematics isn't often mathematical), and
> people were talking about specimen databases at least 25
> years ago. The
> entire field of museum informatics began, as far as I can
> tell, in natural
> history museums.
>
> Today there are many more pieces to the puzzle. In addition
> to collections,
> identification, and tree-building, there are
> genomics/proteomics, and, not
> mentioned yet in this thread, geographic information systems.
> And don't
> forget basic statistics. Not all of these things are
> "on-line" in the sense
> of being at the other end of a TCP/IP connection, but that is often an
> artifact of funding.
>
> In my experience, the ability to deal with one aspect or
> another of what we
> should broadly include in "bioinformatics" is a *minimum
> requirement* for
> employment as an organismal biologist. The fact that some
> employers have
> not yet caught on to this is a measure of their (lack of)
> potential for
> future success.
>
>
> --
> Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
> Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
> California State Polytechnic University      FAX: (909) 869-4078
> Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                  jcclark at csupomona.edu
>