The way the CS and genetics concepts map with each other is really fascinating and thought-provoking.
How would a curious engineer go about learning more about this particular "computer architecture" ?
Going further, is there a realistic career path for someone with a software engineering background to retrain, pivot and meaningfully contribute to research in this area ?
By meaningful I don't just mean the obvious role of building software tools for genetics engineering & research, but actually writing those RNA bits and designing vaccines or other similar items.
Would you need to basically start from scratch as a biology or medical undergrad before working your way up to a PhD, or are there interesting jobs at the crossroads where a previous career as an engineer might be an asset ?
So .. it is not easy to get into this field. From the outside we tend to see DNA as some freestanding thing that fascinates us. The biology people intertwine DNA with everything they do. The route to knowing about this stuff therefore goes via learning about biology first. One of my favorite books, Molecular Biology of the Cell, covers DNA thoroughly.. by spending time on it on almost every of its 1300 pages. But it is all in between "the rest of biology". In a way I can understand this of course, but it is very very hard work.
The way the CS and genetics concepts map with each other is really fascinating and thought-provoking.
How would a curious engineer go about learning more about this particular "computer architecture" ?
Going further, is there a realistic career path for someone with a software engineering background to retrain, pivot and meaningfully contribute to research in this area ?
By meaningful I don't just mean the obvious role of building software tools for genetics engineering & research, but actually writing those RNA bits and designing vaccines or other similar items.
Would you need to basically start from scratch as a biology or medical undergrad before working your way up to a PhD, or are there interesting jobs at the crossroads where a previous career as an engineer might be an asset ?