The 2004 Forecast from Bio-IT
2004 is only a few days away.
(Technology of Life Sciences) has provided some insights as to what
we can expect in 2004 (and beyond).
The '04 Forecast for Bio-IT
[26 December 2003, top]
|
GloFish(TM) Fluorescent Fish
GloFish™ are fluorescent fish originally bred
to detect environmental pollutants. But the makers
of GloFish have concluded that Jack and Jill would
like glowing fish; therefore, they are making them
available for purchase. Note: this decision was
made after the company concluded they were safe
for the masses.
As of 19 December 2003, the homepage contained the following.
In response to extraordinary consumer demand,
limited numbers of GloFish™ fluorescent
fish will be made available immediately.
You may not be able to have Glofish in California because
state regulators have banned sales of the fish.
Glowing fish just too hot for California
{Glofish.com}
{
directory listing of GloFish™ images}
[19 December 2003, top]
|
Bioinformatics in Sweden
The
in Sweden has created a M.S. degree in Bioinformatics.
[source::]
The Computer Science part of their program includes procedural
programming using PERL, object-oriented programming using Java,
genetic algorithms and genetic programming, and artificial
intelligence - symbol systems.
HIS.se::Master of Science in Bioinformatics
[Extra] The City of Scottsdale voted YES to investing
$3-million to support a partnership between TGen and the Mayo
Clinic to build a biomedical laboratory in the northern part
of Scottsdale.
[12 December 2003, top]
|
ASU Technopolis; TGen, Mayo Clinic and Scottsdale?
On 02 December 2003 I attended an breakfast that
featured two speakers from who did an excellent
job helping us to start learning about .
A technopolis is a metropolitan area (e.g. the Valley
of the Sun) that has a real-world economy based on "linking
technology commercialization with the economic development missions
of public and private institutions."
ASU Technopolis is an organization devoted to
"educating, coaching, and connecting technology
and life science entrepreneurs." ASU Technopolis
is interested in "companies" that are not ready
for venture capital and angel investors. ASU Technopolis
wants to enable researchers to become leaders. ASU Technopolis
is motivated to help ideas and inventions become businesses
that allow members of our community to realize the American
dream by following their passions.
ASU Technopolis is following the lead given by the UCSD CONNECT.
[Extra] On Friday, 05 December 2003, the Arizona
Republic reported that the city of Scottsdale is entering
into a partnership with TGen and the Mayo Clinic to build
a biomedical laboratory. I urge Scottsdale politicians to
vote Yes to investing $3 million in the partnership.
[05 December 2003, top]
|
SGI Supports Merck Research Efforts
As an Instructor at Scottsdale Community College,
I am thinking about getting a small computer cluster
so we can start learning about High-Performance Computing
(HPC). If I were a rich man, then I would get a system from
.
On 24 November 2003, SGI announced that the at is using a "SGI© Origin©
3000 family of servers for complete integration of informatics and
molecular profiling into basic and pre-clinical research."
SGI's press release indicates that HPC systems "support
several projects in sequence informatics, molecular profiling,
proteomics, research genetics and toxicology for Merck research
programs in the areas of metabolic disorders, neuroscience,
infectious diseases and oncology."
SGI Supports Merck Research Efforts
[More...]
I attended the
supercomputing event held at the Phoenix Civic Center. While wandering
the exhibit hall I came across a
SGI supercomputer.
[28 November 2003, top]
|
Learning About Biotechnology at Community Colleges
An article in the 12 November 2003 issue of the
states "a top Labor Department official said
yesterday that community colleges nationwide could
boost their courses in the life sciences next year
as part of an effort to meet the staffing needs of
the biotechnology industry."
The article states that companies are looking for
the following skills: a good work ethic, a good
level of literacy, a basic understanding of biological
processes, an understanding of the importance of good
documentation and some insight into the federal
regulatory process."
I agree with how the article ends. "The education
push in the life sciences must start before the community
colleges. It should begin in elementary school and extend
through high school, to get students interested in pursuing
the sciences as a career path."
Staffing Needs Seen in Biotech
[21 November 2003, top]
|
Y Chromosome is-a Palindromic Sequence
This week's posting was provided by MarkP.
"Finally, a small factoid to add to your bioinformatics pages. I read an
article about the Y chromosome, which has finally been mapped. People
use to think that it was merely a waste heap of broken DNA chains and
had little value (except to make some of us the men we are and produce
about 10 zillion sperm). All other chromosomes come in pairs, so they
can perform a certain amount of self-repair when the cell divides. After
mapping the Y chromosome, they found that it is a marvel of engineering
in that it is able to repair itself. Most of the DNA sequences on the Y
chromosome are in the form of palindromes, so it can easily fix itself
without the help of another copy. I guess those of us with Y's are not
so dumb after all."
A palindrome is a string whose character
sequence is the same when the string is reversed.
The Y Chromosome
[14 November 2003, top]
|
More About Isotechnika, Inc.
is an "international
biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development
of novel immunosuppressive therapeutics with a primary focus on drug
candidates intended to prevent organ rejection post transplantation,
and for use in the treatment of autoimmune diseases." The company
is Canada-based, but they recently opened facilities in Scottsdale,
Arizona, and they are having an open house on 18 November 2003.
Isotechnika stock trades on the TSX (Toronto Stock Exchange) under
the symbol
ISA.TO. {Isotechnika.com}
[07 November 2003, top]
|
Valley of the Sun Biotech News
Here are couple of headlines from the 24 October 2003 issue
of the .
+ "Canadian biotech firm picks Valley for U.S. headquarter"
"Officials see state as cost-effective alternative to
traditional bio hubs." The company is located in Scottsdale.
+ "Law firms starting to prepare for biotech business"
[Extra] Thank You to the Arizona Bioindustry Association
for having , Director of
ASU's ,
speak on 29 October 2003 on the ASU campus.
The following was obtained from the AzBio.org website.
"Arizona Biodesign will provide a physical and intellectual
environment that promotes communication, collaboration, and
integration. Research within Arizona Biodesign is strategically
positioned at the confluence of three burgeoning technology
streams: biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology."
[31 October 2003, top]
|
Mothers Against Genetic Engineering (New Zealand)
Biotechnology is much more than just technology -- it also includes
Bioethics. From comes a report
about a New Zealand based group called
(Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment) that
has started a billboard campaign to provoke public debate about the
social and cultural ethics of genetic engineering. The billboards
depict a genetically engineered woman with four breasts being milked
by a milking machine.
Net.nz::Mothers Against Genetic Engineering.
[24 October 2003, top]
|
Phoenix: City Hall DNA Exhibit; Bioscience Center Construction
On 16 October 2003, I visted a DNA exhibit
located inside Phoenix City Hall. While
downtown, I visited the location where the
Phoenix Bioscience Center is being constructed.
Here is a
directory listing of pictures.
[17 October 2003, top]
|
Tempe-based Orthologic to Focus on Orthobiologic Drug-Development
Tempe-based has
entered into a deal to sell its bone growth stimulation
business so they can focus on developing orthobiologic
drugs. Orthologic's announcement caused their stock to jump
10% when the stock market opened on Thursday, 09 October 2003.
OLGC has approximately 33 million shares and they received almost
$2.80 per share for their bone growth stimulation business.
Orthologic's President and CEO states: "We believe that
orthobiologics -- which can be described as combining innovations
in biotechnology with material sciences and tissue biology to utilize
the body's natural capacity to regenerate and repair musculoskeletal
tissue -- will be a key driver of growth and profitability in the
$13 billion orthopedics industry going forward."
[
Orthologic Press Release]
[10 October 2003, top]
|
ASU, UofA, NAU Form the Arizona Biomedical Collaboration
On 01 October 2003, the front-page of the "Local"
section of the
had article about how the three Arizona state universities
(ASU, UofA, NAU) are planning a "joint Phoenix biomedical
campus" that they are calling the .
Speaking of biomedical...
The 01 October 2003 issue of the reported that the (NIH) "expects
to spend about $2.1-billion over the next six years in
an effort to facilitate innovative, interdisciplinary
biomedical research that improves patient care."
NIH.gov::NIH Announces Strategy to Accelerate Medical Research Progress
[03 October 2003, top]
|
ActionBioscience.org::Promoting Bioscience Literacy
is a "
non-commercial, ad-free, educational web site created to promote
bioscience literacy." Some of the website objectives include
the following.
-
motivate the public to play an active role in bioscience education
-
show how developments in bioscience research can affect everyone
-
encourage students to pursue studies in the biosciences
ActionBioscience.org::Seven Bioscience Challenges
[biodiversity, environment, genomics, biotechnology,
evolution, new frontiers, education]
[26 September 2003, top]
|
DNA Power Computing (and Dr. Len Adleman at USC)
One month ago, posted an
article about the potential of .
One of the leaders in this area is USC Professor/Computer Scientist
.
[Adleman is the 'A' in RSA.]
Adleman's interest in DNA computing grew when he came to the realization
that "human cells and computers process and store information in much
the same way." Here is a quote from the Wired News article.
"Researchers hope to someday inject tiny computers into
humans to zap viruses, fix good cells gone bad and
otherwise keep us healthy."
Wired.com::DNA Power Computing? Could Be
[19 September 2003, top]
|
Stopping the Spread of Diseases
One of the many exciting outcomes of biotechnology is the
potential for finding ways to minimize or eliminate the
spread of diseases. The
(National Center for Supercomputing Applications) warns us
that "the rapid movement of people into urban areas and
their increased mobility around the globe allow diseases to
spread more rapidly, easily, and extensively." Hopefully,
bioscientists will find a way to stunt the growth and spread
of infectious diseases.
NCSA::Digging for the Roots of Disease.
[12 September 2003, top]
|
Why Bioinformatics?
There are numerous battle fronts forming within the
(MCCCD) over the use of the term
bioinformatics.
The MCCCD must be sure it uses the term informatics
wisely. Why? Because Informatics, which has
always been a necessary application of computing, is key to
enabling many 21st Century technologies. Bioinformatics is
a form of Informatics (as is medical informatics, financial
informatics, legal informatics, chemical informatics, and
so on).
Let's forget about the MCCCD for the time being and let
tell us
why to go into bioinformatics.
Here are some quotes from the Artima.com article.
"Bioinformatics is not the easiest of computer-related careers.
To do real bioinformatics work requires some understanding of biology.
It also often requires a great deal of math. The math required differs
depending on what area you're in (phylogenetics, 3-d modeling or
visualization, sequence analysis, image processing, etc.)"
[...]
"Scientific programming jobs will be more difficult to
outsource than general-purpose programming work. Anybody
can write a program that stuffs data in a database or
presents query results. But not everybody has the knowledge
of biology to support a research group in its
computational needs."
[05 September 2003, top]
|
From Boys Baseball to Kid Scientists
I was cleaning house and found an old
item about the TGen/IGC groundbreaking
ceremony that never got posted. I updated
the item to include a current Valley of
the Sun reference to boys baseball.
More...
[29 August 2003, top]
|
TGen's and ASU's Supercomputer Using PBS Pro
is a system
that allows users to get more performance from their
high-performance computers. According to a DevChannel.org
article, PBS Pro "aggregates computation resources
into a virtual pool and intelligently schedules computational
workloads across the virtual pool."
TGen, ASU, IGC to Use PBS Pro(TM)
[22 August 2003, top]
|
TGen Hires a Director of the Technology Transfer Office
On 13 August 2002,
issued a press release indicating they are continuing
to fill key management positions. TGen's President,
Jeffrey Trent, is quoted saying "TGen continues
to attract exceptional talent to the state of Arizona."
TGen filled the with Ron King, who founded a similar
office for the National Human Genome Research Institute at
the National Institutes of Health.
TGen.org::TGen Names Key Mangement Officials
[15 August 2003, top]
|
Phoenix and Tempe; TGen and ASU
TGen and ASU are moving along at a brisk pace
while the cities of Phoenix and Tempe are still
trying to convince themselves that the biotech
adventure is going to remain an adventure well
into the future. If it doesn't, then the Valley
of the Sun will be dry of any high-tech industries.
It is in the best interests of both Phoenix and
Tempe to get along and to follow the lead of
TGen and ASU.
[
More...]
[08 August 2003, top]
|
TGen's Dr. Suh Thinks Large-Scale
is the
CIO (Chief Information Officer) of . Here are some quotes about Dr. Suh
from TGen's website.
"The partnership with ASU, IGC and IBM demonstrates Suh's
basic goal at TGen: He wants to create a high-performance computer
environment where researchers work without worrying about computing
power. 'I want them to take it for granted that the computing power
and computational resources, including programming support,
will be there,' he says."
"Suh knows that he and his team provide the resources that support,
guide and advance research in genomics and biomedicine. These
state-of-the-art computer resources allow researchers to go both
'faster and deeper' into biological systems than ever before.
'Helping researchers is my joy. I am really proud of doing that.'
It appears TGen's computing systems are good hands with Dr. Suh.
TGen.org::TGen, Ed Suh Thinks Large-Scale
[01 August 2003, top]
|
Biofood Labels -- Yes or No?
How do we define bioethics at a global level?
Biotechnology it complicated by the fact that it has many
layers of professional ethics. These ethics can cause serious
conflicts when it comes to progress.
offers a story that
begins as follows.
"The European Parliament votes to require labels on
genetically modified foods, paving the way for it
to rescind its five-year moratorium on new biotech
crops and products. U.S. officials, who have long
fought the ban, complain that labeling is too much
hassle."
EU Approves Biotech Food Label
[25 July 2003, top]
|
DNA Sequence of Chromosome Seven Published
The following was obtained from .
"Chromosome seven is the home of genes associated with
cystic fibrosis, deafness, several cancers and a protein
that resists cancer drugs. Research at five centers around
the world has culminated in the publication of the complete
DNA sequence of chromosome seven in the July 10 issue of Nature."
WiredNews::Mapping an 'Unlucky' Chromosome
Chr7.org::Chromosome 7 Annotation Project
[18 July 2003, top]
|
From the AZ Dept. of Commerce to President Bush via Biotech
This week's posting ended up being the merge of two
postings and the resulting merge became a stand-alone
document (i.e. webpage). This is the first Biotech::Trekker
posting to do this; therefore, I had to give the object a
name and I called it a track. It would have been
fun to attend the Bio 2003 Annual Convention.
Biotech::Trekker::Track::
From the AZ Dept. of Commerce to President Bush via Biotech
[11 July 2003, top]
|
TGen, NAU, ASU Sequence the Arizona Plague
continues to
generate one good story after another. On 01
July 2003, TGen announced that they along with
Northern Arizona University (NAU) and ASU have
computed the Arizona plague's DNA sequence.
[04 July 2003, top]
|
TGen Attracts Software Company 5AM Solutions to Arizona
[source::TGEN press release dated 26 June 2003]
has become
the first company to choose Arizona due to TGen. 5AM
Solutions -- a software company with operations in
downtown Phoenix -- is working with the TGen Bioinformatics
Facility on a system for a national Microarray Consortium
project.
[27 June 2003, top]
|
MIT/Harvard To Explore the Human Genome Together
On 20 June 2003, the reported that and were
using a $100 million grant to join forces to create the
.
The goal of the Broad Institute is to "create a new type
of biomedical research institute, aimed at realizing the promise
of the human genome to revolutionize clinical medicine and to make
knowledge broadly available to scientists around the world."
[
MIT.edu::Press Release
]
[22 June 2003, top]
|
High-Tech Construction -- CREATE at ASU
Biotechnology requires biofacilities. The construction
industry needs to design and build clean, efficient, and
smart buildings.
along with industry has formed a research organization named
-- the Construction Research
and Education for Advanced Technology Environments.
[
ASU.edu::CREATE Controlled Environment]
[20 June 2003, top]
|
TGen/IGC Ground Breaking
Today, Friday, 13 June 2003, was the "ceremonial groundbreaking
for the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the International
Genomics Consortium headquarters facility on the Phoenix Bioscience Center
at Copper Square." Here are
some pictures.
[13 June 2003, top]
|
AzBioindustry.org Presents Physician's Choice of Arizona
On 04 June 2003,
hosted a guest speaker who was the founder of . PCA is
"committed to enhancing the vitality of Arizonans
by promoting skin health through skin care products
and education."
PCA was formed in 1990 and a couple of keys to its success
was to get physicians making money by selling products and
to make products that benefitted the customer.
PCA's founder and leader was a real estate agent turned
Aesthetician. Her transition was initiated by three factors:
a passion for skin care products, turning 40, and a physic
reading. Today, PCA produces 40-50 cosmetic products that
help women protect their skin and hide their age.
PCA holds some patents (at least three), but she emphasized
that small companies need to think deeply about using patents,
trademarks and copyrights due the money needed to manage these
business tools.
[05 June 2003, top]
|
TGen Partners with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
issued a press release stating
that it has established a partnership with the (SRPMIC) and the
City of Phoenix to research the "genetic basis of diabetes and
other debilitating diseases." TGen will receive one million
dollars a year for five-years from the SRPMIC.
[03 June 2003, top]
|
MCCCD Wants Money to Partner with TGen
The Arizona Republic (30 May 2003) reported that the (MCCCD) may "request
money to establish a presence near at Seventh
and Fillmore streets." MCCCD needs to be a productive participant in Arizona's
biotech industry.
AZCentral.com::ArizonaRepublic::Community Colleges May Seek Link with TGen
[03 June 2003, top]
|
Goldwater Institute Equates Biotech Investment with Gambling
The CEO and President of the Goldwater Institute
posted a message to the Arizona Republic blog that
equated investment in biotech with gambling. Here
is my reply.
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 17:22:39 -0700 (MST)
From: G.D.Thurman
To: talkback@arizonarepublic.com
Subject: Biotech/Goldwater Institute
Sunday, Arizona Republic, Viewpoint Section
Darcy Olsen says "Feeling lucky?" in reference
to biotech in Arizona.
I reply with a quote from the end of Chapter
Two of the book: Nanotechnology: A Gentle
Introduction to the Next Big Idea (Ratner
and Ratner, ISBN 0-13-101400-5).
"Even for those who believe that the promise
is overstated, the potential is too great
to ignore."
The following is a quote from the
GoldwaterInstitute.org website. "The Goldwater Institute was established
in 1988 as an independent, nonpartisan research and educational organization dedicated
to the study of public policy in Arizona." Biotech's success depends on a strong
state-wide university system; however, on 12 May 2003, the Goldwater Institute issued
a report claiming
"no connection" between good schools and economic growth.
[21 May 2003, top]
|
San Diego has a Strong Biotech Industry
There are numerous biotech clusters around the U.S. and world.
In the U.S., Silicon Valley, Boston/Cambridge are two popular
biotech geographical centers. The Valley of the Sun is hoping
to establish a healthy biotech community. According to
San Diego has a growing Biotech industry.
[18 May 2003, top]
|
Business 2.0 Says Biotechnology a Growth Industry
has an article
that lists "Biotechnology" at the top of a list
of industries expected to lead in revenue and employment
growth. The top five industries included
"Internet Services" at number three
and "Computer software and services"
at number five.
Business 2.0::Look Who's Hiring [Hyperlink provided by Jim Simpson,
CIS Instructor at Scottsdale Community College.]
[10 May 2003, top]
|
Wikipedia.org::Wiki::Bioinformatics
The is a
free on-line encyclopedia that is being written
collaboratively by the readers of the Webopedia
website. All Wikipedia articles are covered by
the GNU Free Documentation License.
Wikipedia.org::Bioinformatics has been added to our
collection of external hyperlinks.
[08 May 2003, top]
|
Arizona Bio Expo 2003
On Friday, 25 April 2003, approximately 400 people along
with numerous schools and companies attended the
at the Pointe at South Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona.
Here is a
short report on the event.
[Side-bar] The date of Arizona Bio Expo 2003 coincided with the 50th
anniversity of the
discovery of the DNA structure.
[26 April 2003, top]
|
The Digitial Divide Meets the Fear of Science
The computing world has been trying to figure out how to shrink
the Digital Divide for many years. The Biotech world inherits
this reality along with other forms of divides.
Guardian.co.uk::A New Kind of Literacy --
"widening gulf between the science cognoscenti
and everyone else." Here is a quote from the end
of the article.
"Once we have a society where science is as
exciting as football, and where attending a science
lecture or debate is as relevant and fun as going to
the cinema, only then will we be truly empowered as
a society to harness science for what we want in life,
rather than the other way round."
The hyperlink to the
article was obtained from Scottsdale Community College
PESTS::Psychologists Educating Students to Think Skeptically.
[17 April 2003, top]
|
University of Waterloo Wins Protein Folding Contest
The following is the first paragraph from an SGI
press release located on SGI.com.
"Using the power of a 40-processor SGI® Origin® 3800 supercomputer,
the School of Computer Science at the , has
won the prestigious Critical Assessment of Fully Automated
Structure Prediction (CAFASP) competition.
[07 April 2003, top]
|
Arizona Republic Helps Promote Local Biotech Efforts
The Sunday, 30 March 2003, was full of biotech fodder.
The following are hyperlinks to articles at
.
[01 April 2003, top]
|
Bjarne Stroustrup is at Texas A&M
, the
creator of C++, is now at . Stroustrup's homepage
indicates that he is "the College of Engineering
Professor in Computer Science at Texas A&M University."
Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup Lands at Texas A&M
[31 March 2003, top]
|
ACM.org::Career Opportunities, March 2003
Every month the ends
with a section called . The advertisements
are for computer scientists who are into research.
The March 2003 issue had numerous opportunities
for those passionate about Bioinformatics.
GDT::Biotech::Note::ACM Career Opportunities
[24 March 2003, top]
|
Baseball Player Added to TGen's Board
-- professional
baseball player on the Arizona Diamondbacks -- has been
awarded a seat on TGen's board. Schilling was quoted
saying "I'm not really sure why they wanted me."
[source::
AzCentral.com::Business]
[20 March 2003, top]
|
ASU Seeking Money to Build Bioscience Facilities
is seeking money from the Arizona legislature
to help build and operate a facility to support their . ASU (and the University of Arizona)
are requesting "$29 million a year for the next 25 years."
This works out to an investment of $725,000,000. This
money does not include the cost of funding research efforts.
[source::Arizona Republic, State Capital Section]
[06 March 2003, top]
|
Learning About Computational Biosciences at ASU
has a
program.
The emphasized computer science areas are database management,
design and analysis of algorithms, and computer graphics.
LifeSciences.ASU.edu
[03 March 2003, top]
|
23 Scientists Join Genomics Institute
The Business section of the 19 February 2003 had a front-page article about how the genomics
resource project has hired 56 people -- 23 of whom are scientists. The
list of scientists included
who is the Chief Information Officer (CIO). Suh comes from the National
Institutes of Health and the article indicated that TGen is working
with ASU to build a major computing center. [A google for Suh
resulted in a hyperlink to
NIH.gov::
High Performance Computing and Informatics Office.]
[20 February 2003, top]
|
Lincoln Stein Speaks About Bioinformatics
was interviewed about Bioinformatics
late January, 2003, and here are some keywords: nanotechnology, BioPerl, BioPython,
BioJava, and BioRuby. According to Stein, nanotechnology is the enabler.
OReillyNet.com::Stein Speaks About Bioinformatics
[18 February 2003, top]
|
ASU Help Wanted Advertisement
is looking
for somebody to Chair their Computer Science Department. They
ran an advertisement in the February, 2003 volume of the Communications
of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).
More...
[10 February 2003, top]
|
What is Bioinformatics?
The homepage defines
Bioinformatics as follows.
"Bioinformatics is the field of science in which biology,
computer science, and information technology merge into a single
discipline. The ultimate goal of the field is to enable the discovery
of new biological insights as well as to create a global perspective
from which unifying principles in biology can be discerned."
is the lead by
the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes
of Health.
NCBI.NLM.NHI.gov::Education
[06 February 2003, top]
|
OCW.MIT.edu::Introduction to Biology, Course Home
has an project which is a "publication
of MIT course materials." These materials are "Free and
open to the world."
MIT.edu::OpenCourseWare::Biology::Introduction to Biology.
[06 February 2003, top]
|
MCCCD Has Dedicated $1.5 Million to Biotech Education
On 23 January 2003, Ed Contreras, incoming governing board
president of the Maricopa County Community College District,
had an editorial published in the in which he mentioned the word
bio-industry twice. He wrote that the MCCCD has
"dedicated" $1.5 million towards biotech education.
Here is a quote from his editorial.
"As our state works to attract bio-industries, we're busy
teaching science and math courses that will provide the
qualified workforce that will lure companies and high
paying jobs to our region."
Contreras needs to add that the MCCCD is also busy teaching
computing because biotech cannot happen without computers.
[24 January 2003, top]
|
Advice Thompson Gave to His Kids
created the Unix
operating system during the late-1960s/early-1970s. He is
a computing Guru. Here are some quotes from an interview
he did with the
from May of 1999.
"Well, I had to give advice to my son, and my advice to him -
to the next generation - was to get into biology."
"Computer science is coming into its middle age. It's turning into a commodity.
People don't know about Carnot cycles for refrigerators, yet they buy refrigerators.
It's happening in computing too. Who knows about compilers? They buy computers to
play games and balance their checkbooks. So my advice to my child was - I am
unfortunately talking to Computer magazine - to go into biology, not classic
biology but gene therapy and things like that."
"[...] aspects of computer science are becoming more specialized."
[21 January 2003, top]
|
Arizona Biodesign Institute at ASU
The held in Tempe, Arizona,
on Tuesday, 14 January 2003, was lightly attended (40-50 people), but
that didn't stop
Gregory Raupp, Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering,
Arizona State University, from giving an upbeat and informative talk about
the Arizona Biodesign Institute at ASU.
[15 January 2003, top]
|
IBM::Open Source in the Biosciences
is one of the largest computer
companies in the world and they are solidily behind the use
of Free and Open Source Software. During November, 2002,
IBM posted an article that starts with the following quote.
Bioinformatics and the use of open source in the biosciences are
both still in the take-off phase. There's a lot of growth ahead
of us. Here are a few of the technical software developments that
will matter most in bioinformatics over the next year.
IBM.com::Open Source in the Biosciences
[09 January 2003, top]
|
Initial External Hyperlinks
It is possible to list too many hyperlinks. This collection
is the first batch of hyperlinks to be evaluated. Hyperlinks
to useful resources will be added to the Hyperlinks
section of this blog.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[17 December 2002, top]
|
TGen is Looking for Computer Professionals
Three big advertisements were
in the Help Wanted section of Sunday's (01 December 2002)
Arizona Republic. In a nutshell, TGen is looking for the
following skill sets.
Senior Network Engineer
Senior Network Security Engineer
Technical Support Engineer (TSE)
The TSE job requires "expert understanding of
MacOS 9 and MacOS X, MS Windows 2000 and XP,
and Redhat Linux operating systems. MCSE or
equivalent certification is plus. Knowledge
of TCP/IP and Internet protocols, such as DNS,
HTTP, SMTP and SSL is preferred."
What is TGen?
is... "
an independent research institute, established
as a not-for-profit 501(c X3) organization, with
the mission of helping 'translate scientific discoveries
into diagnostics, treatments and cures'."
[01 December 2002, top]
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MCCCD and Biotechnology
On Friday, 11 October 2002, the
hosted a at Estrella Mountain Community College.
The Valley of the Sun (especially the city of Phoenix),
Arizona State University and the MCCCD are excited about
the potential opportunities biotechnology offers.
More...
[18 October 2002, top]
|
Biotech::Trekker::New GDT Blog
I am starting to hear about biotechnology on a daily basis;
therefore, this blog was started. and are important biotech components. This
resource is about .
[11 October 2002, top]
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