Bioinformatics: origin and life cycle

To the New Year's number Konstantin Popadein , cand. Biol. Sciences, n. With. Department of Medical Genetics and Development of the Medical Department of Geneva University (Switzerland), n. With. Ippi RAS, prepared a report that, without a doubt, will help schoolchildren and graduate students decide on the choice of the only true profession - bioinformatics.

They often ask me: "Who are bioinformatics and what do they do?" I am pretty tired of inventing the answer on the go every time, and I decided to state the essence of the matter on paper, once and for all satisfying all the curious.

Yes, I have come across bioinformatics more than once! Sometimes I even smiled at the happiness of observing them in the immediate vicinity - almost at the distance of an outstretched hand. At first glance, they seem very different - this is how if you look at butterflies fluttering in the flowering meadow: all of different colors and different sizes; Some are easy to catch, while others are difficult; Some fly quickly and silently, while others creak slowly and slightly from the friction of the wings. But when you start comparing them, for example, with grasshoppers, you understand that even bioinformatics have something in common ...

So, bioinformatics is a man (with rare exceptions). Such a bearded, with glasses and with a cell phone (large, black and with a green screen), looking at which schoolchildren of primary schools argue for a long time - what is it? Moreover, the version of the "cell phone" is not even advanced.

The path of bioinformatics is complicated and irrational, therefore, every bioinformatic can tell its unique history of falls and ups, if it should be fed. It is impossible to become a bion -formatic of his own free will, since the profession chooses his victims, and not vice versa. However, you can slightly reduce or increase the chances of choosing you.

If, for example, in the biochemical practice of the Faculty of Biology, you identified a protein, which at the university from generation to generation is shown in the form of a sample, or if bacteria “like yeast” grow in your Petri cup, you should not be a bioinformatical. If you have died all the experimental objects before the protection of the course, and not after (like everyone else), then the chances are statistically significantly increased.

Yeast, Drosophili, Daphnia, Bacteria, Tigers, Plasmids, Red Wolves and Transpozons, Large and Small Tits, Podger and Fibroblasts - the object is not important - Bioinformatics die! Sometimes bioinformatics are formed from mathematicians, but this is no better, but even vice versa. Having no deplorable children's experience with hamsters and parrots and deplorable student experience with bacteria and plasmids, they try to “catch up” with frenzied efforts. And they succeed! Because bioinformatics is a vocation.
Having disconnected a refrigerator several times with frozen samples and reagents in search of a socket to recharge the phone, overturning the defense of the diploma due to the fact that “the phone still sat down and did not wake up,” the future bioinformatics seriously thinks about his life.

To continue the life cycle at this moment, it is extremely necessary (I) not to buy another phone and (II) to meet the already inveterate bioinformatics. If one meets, he says: “Colleague, stop doing nonsense! Here you have a book - perl for dummies, and go, but if there are questions - call ... ”The young bioinformatist glances at the phone of the heavier, and - lo and Oh miracle! - his gaze clears up, and a light of hope lights up in his eyes. Exactly the same !!! The people at such moments say: "A small policeman was born." After awareness of this sign, the young bioinformatics with trembling hands and reverence sits down at the computer and tries a new path on the tooth.

They say that the pike fry has only a few shots to catch something edible and survive, and the unsuccessful first hunting of a young wolf leaves a negative imprint on his whole life. Since the bioinformatics have already abandoned wet biology (or mathematics, physics, chemistry), the bite of a new path should not be comic, otherwise the threat of ending their lives on ballroom dancing, where are always happy to boys, even bearded. And at this turning point in the formation of the personality of bioinformatics, he understands that there are plenty of the computer!

The origin of life on Earth, RNA and DNA, eukaryotes, cacti, dinosaurs and red wolves, harmful mutations and useful, species and extinction-everything has now become somehow closer and more clearly than through the prism of test tubes. It’s like if you passed for half your life short -sighted and suddenly put on glasses. Now you see that the tram on which you go to the university is not 00, but 33 (you are always surprised at a strange number - 00), and the girl who drives this tram is not a girl at all, but even vice versa.

Strange things also happen to the body-the legs became somehow longer, and hairs appeared on the fingers of the legs, like some kind of hobbit ... On the dark boards at the university, a lot of incomprehensible things are now visible. In general, life became full of small details, and a hungry brain-with such and such high-quality graphics-began to receive much more information. But we will not be distracted, because glasses are just a metaphor.

So, the work has gone! Under the fingers (under the fingers of the hands!) Of our newly-mesh and already celebrated bioinformatics, every half hour get up and collapse of civilizations: finally-a cure for old age! Dinosaurs died out because they accumulated too many harmful mutations! The average length of intron in birds correlates back at the speed of their flight! Daphni's parthenogenesis mutation spreads from north to south with an accelerating pace and is very strange, but statistically reliably correlates with the average number of children for a person’s family ...

And now the bioinformata is already purring under his breath: "I am a megamonster, I am a supervunderkind, I am the lord of the world." And only bats do not agree to confirm any correlations: they live longer than they should be, and how much they should be - it is not clear, and their genomes are too similar to birds. Something is not clean with them ... Every day, our bioinformatics swings and more less believed by capital truths, everything is questioned, and his thoughts are more bolder and bolder: "Perhaps bats are simply birds ..."

As a rule, the thought that bioinformatics think is reflected in its appearance, so experienced people notice bioinformatics by eye. The people say about these: "The appearance disfigured by intelligence." But few people know that this cell phone pulls their jacket pocket.

Thought in itself never disappears from the head of bioinformatics. If it is correct, then in order to forget it, it must be published. It happens that the thought is wrong, but in this case it must be published - after all, every thought of bioinformatics is valuable and unique: no one can repeat the thought except the author of this thought. Sometimes the authors fail this. Then the people say: "Thought flew away." And the police are raised by salaries.

And there is no rest for him, while there are unresolved tasks in the computer, and in his head - thoughts, and he torments his longing that life is short, and so many things can now be done. Now! When hairs appeared on your toes! But still occasionally, when it is necessary to recharge the cell phone and there are no free sockets, refrigerators or supercomputers nearby, the bioinformatics is forced to turn off his favorite computer and set to charge its completely “dead” cell phone. And now he has a few days to bow his tired head on his shoulders of his colleagues and gain strength, because he will have a very long day ahead ...