[amitutk]

Don't start with organic chemistry or genetics unless you have a 5-year plan. Basic understanding of molecular biology (structure of DNA, central dogma, etc.) will be enough to get started. Finally, here is a book (1) that describes many algorithmic problems in bioinformatics that a techie could relate to.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bioinformatics-Algorithms...