[shimon]

I studied CS and now work in software systems for biomedical research. It's difficult to overstate how different the fields are, so I don't entirely agree with this statement. But I do agree there are going to be lots and lots of huge discoveries in biology in the 21st century.

The main difference is that CS attempts to generate and study complex systems built from well-understood components, whereas biology attempts to understand and manipulate systems that evolved naturally over eons.

Imagine dropping a fully functional internet-connected Google Home Hub into 1960-era humanity and asking them to figure out how it works so they modify it to sound like Walter Cronkite. There are thousands of problems on this order of complexity in biology. It's wild.

[mannymanman]

What was your path going from CS -> bio? Interested in a similar path

[pddpro]

Same here. The more I've progressed in CS, the more dissatisfied I am. Outside of creating algorithms that vie for constant user attention (the basic business model of FAANG), I don't see any fruitful application of my skills. I'd much rather move towards the domains where my knowledge of data, systems, and algorithms could be better utilized (medicine, Genomics, structural engineering, governance etc).

[Balgair]

I've done the physics->neuro leap, so I may be of some use here.

The path is pretty clear, but takes time. Essentially, you need to go back to school and learn biology.

Fortunately, many grad programs in the US are desperate for people that want to be trained as biologists but have relevant skills in other areas like CS. So skip going back to undergrad and just apply to grad programs.

Unfortunately, that means you have to join the Ivory Tower's horrible system for a while. A 'good' tactic is to get into a PhD program where you'll be paid, learn everything, get your MS, and then quit the program after ~3 years with a free MS. Fair warning, the learning will be absolutely horrible and you'll be on the bubble of being kicked out; it really is that much info you're trying to digest in such a short time period. But if you're not worried about scholarships and grades, then that's fine. Your PI will hate you, but then again they hate everyone, so it's a wash.

If you're serious about grad school then read this first: https://acoup.blog/2021/10/01/collections-so-you-want-to-go-...

One thing to be clear about though, jobs in biotech are much less well paid than in CS. You're looking at a 1/3rd to 1/4th salary decrease for pure bio jobs as compared to programmer jobs. Even leveraging your coding skills for biotech companies is going to be tough; you'll be pigeon holed into either a lab role or a coder role. The true blended roles are very rare. So much so as that you'll essentially have to start your own company, or be the heart of any company your join. So, good money there, but huge pressures.

[pddpro]

How difficult is it to transition from Computer Science to Biomedics? Particularly towards the field of Genomics (where CRISPR is).

[Balgair]

Having done the physics -> neuro leap, it's pretty tough.

You have to learn a whole new set of fields and new ways of thinking. That takes time. To be 'good' at genomics, you kinda need to know how the genes are implemented in the various model organisms. Which means you need to know the relevant biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and physics of the situations. That's, essentially, an entire undergrad education. Then, you get to do the actual work, which takes about 1.5 years of study, so most of a masters degree. Then you can start really doing the work.

For me, the first big realization coming from physics was that these little yeast cells and zebrafish aren't just little machines of quantum chemistry. They really are alive, even down to the cellular level, and they are studying you too. There were hundreds of such insights.

[tyre]

think of the tech debt in our legacy codebase

[elevaet]

3.7 billion years of refactoring has kept it pretty clean and functional. We'll need to do a shit ton of unit and integration testing before we commit changes.

[redtexture]

There is a lot of pruning that occurs, evolutionarily speaking, and a lot of what was thought to be "useless" genome has been discovered to be conserved over generations, and that there is use for that part of the genome.