Had fun live-streaming a chat yesterday with @IcahnMountSinai Director of Bioinformatics @AviMaayan
Before our @tidybiology code along, Avi dropped some words of wisdom 👇
Before our @tidybiology code along, Avi dropped some words of wisdom 👇
On approaches to science:
Avi Mayan builds tools to enable biological discovery. He wants to figure out “how cells work”
He is gene-agnostic & disease-agnostic, meaning he can follow science wherever it takes him
This is a tremendous advantage for genuine & impactful discovery
Avi Mayan builds tools to enable biological discovery. He wants to figure out “how cells work”
He is gene-agnostic & disease-agnostic, meaning he can follow science wherever it takes him
This is a tremendous advantage for genuine & impactful discovery
On Data science:
#datascience infuses computation in biology, statistics, topology (networks), dynamic modeling
All providing a data driven approach
For his PhD, Avi tried reading 1000+ papers to understand cell signaling networks
“It was quite daunting, and it didn’t work"
#datascience infuses computation in biology, statistics, topology (networks), dynamic modeling
All providing a data driven approach
For his PhD, Avi tried reading 1000+ papers to understand cell signaling networks
“It was quite daunting, and it didn’t work"
On Data science, II:
ML/AI is becoming more common place (and powerful)
#Dataviz is critical
And while there is a risk of putting data science tools into hands of inexperienced, there is a tremendous opportunity for rapid discovery to find drugs to treat disease.
ML/AI is becoming more common place (and powerful)
#Dataviz is critical
And while there is a risk of putting data science tools into hands of inexperienced, there is a tremendous opportunity for rapid discovery to find drugs to treat disease.
On problem solving:
Understanding the problem deeply is more important than writing the perfect line of code
Understanding the problem deeply is more important than writing the perfect line of code
On quality control:
Avi leveraged a MOOC & had students extract gene sets from GEO to get drug and disease perturbations
To keep quality high, manual curation is key, but also designed good gene sets to be enriched & poor gene sets to fall to the bottom.
Think Google.
Avi leveraged a MOOC & had students extract gene sets from GEO to get drug and disease perturbations
To keep quality high, manual curation is key, but also designed good gene sets to be enriched & poor gene sets to fall to the bottom.
Think Google.
Advice for the future:
Dont’ shy away from programming. It's a very important skill.
Biologists should spend a serious effort learning math, stats, & computer science.
There is a lot to learn.
The more you know, the more powerful your approaches and more successful you’ll be.
Dont’ shy away from programming. It's a very important skill.
Biologists should spend a serious effort learning math, stats, & computer science.
There is a lot to learn.
The more you know, the more powerful your approaches and more successful you’ll be.
