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Comment by DrAwdeOccarim | Hacker News Reader

I've been wondering how long it would be until a16z said something along these lines. I agree completely and am blown away by the progress we have made on informational medicines in the past decade. I would highly recommend to you, if you're a tech-focused person, to get into the field now. I feel like the internet era has matured significantly to the point where the frontier aspect of it has been tamed. Now it's time to move into biology. Look for foundational companies that power the biological information revolution.

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I wanted to do this for years now. It´s clear to me, that biotech will become a complete game changer. But what can you do, if you know only the computer science part? It seems like you can contribute only peanuts, if you don´t know one of the natural sciences.

Okay, I keep seeing this sentiment. Maybe time to write a course...

Please do. A simple list of things a CS person should know in order to be useful in a biotech context would be a good starter.

I like to start with some books and simple experiments at home, but have no idea where to begin.

In the past, I thought about going back to college. But I wasted enough of my time there and am still burned. Just give me the relevant bits, skip the fat. But I guess you really need some lab experience to really get biotech and that is not something you just get by yourself.

We hire data scientists constantly. We also hire along the full-stack because we make all our software in house. There is tons of low-hanging fruit right now in biotech for CS problem solvers.

I currently live in Switzerland and had no problems getting several job offers for consulting, traditional software engineering companies, insurance companies, Fintech companies and so on.

I also applied to some companies that work in biotech related ares, zero response (full-stack job offers). Well, I think I send one application and two inquiries, still no response. That was very irritating, as it did not happen before anywhere else. But all of them wrote that they want a bit of a bio background, so I attributed it to that.

Eh, the bio requirement is weak but I get it. Without the bio background, best would be to know someone who can refer you to the hiring manager (LinkedIn, etc.) or to be super persistent and asking good questions.

So what would you tell a kid about to graduate high school that thinks this stuff sounds interesting? What fundamentals should they focus on?

Read about genetics and genomics. Get good at programming and study maths. Aim to do a PhD at the Broad or the Sanger.

Eh. You can literally do a PhD anywhere (in western countries) and as long as you're good and your skill set is complementary, you will find a good job in industry science. Going to a top-tier university for a PhD may get you a better network, but ultimately when I hire I really don't pay attention to where the degree comes from. Nor do I care about papers beyond did you get your name on (any author position) at least one during your graduate work. The key is complementary and practical skill sets and being able to speak passionately about your work--even if it's arcane or boring.

Get into a lab doing primary research as soon as possible. Full stop. It can be a college/university lab, government, foundation, anything.

In my opinion, information medicines is the fantastic convergence of bio and tech, so I would look for biochemistry labs that focus on DNA and RNA.

Once you have a list of local research institutes, I can help you pick a lab to focus on. Then you just hammer them constantly by email and in person asking questions about the work until they hire you to wash the dishes :)

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