How to become a Bioinformatics Technician 2024

Bioinformatics Technician Apply principles and methods of bioinformatics to assist scientists in areas such as pharmaceuticals, medical technology, biotechnology, computational biology, proteomics, computer information science, biology and medical informatics. Apply bioinformatics tools to visualize, analyze, manipulate or interpret molecular data. May build and maintain databases for processing and analyzing genomic or other biological information.

Bioinformatics Technician is Also Know as

In different settings, Bioinformatics Technician is titled as

Bioinformatics Analyst
Bioinformatics Specialist
Bioinformatics Technician
Biotechnician
Museum Informatics Specialist
Research Scientist
Scientific Informatics Analyst

Education and Training of Bioinformatics Technician

Bioinformatics Technician is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Bioinformatics Technician

A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.

Education Required for Bioinformatics Technician

Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Degrees Related to Bioinformatics Technician

Training Required for Bioinformatics Technician

Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Bioinformatics Technician in different industries are

What Do Bioinformatics Technician do?

Develop or maintain applications that process biologically based data into searchable databases for purposes of analysis, calculation, or presentation.
Enter or retrieve information from structural databases, protein sequence motif databases, mutation databases, genomic databases or gene expression databases.
Monitor database performance and perform any necessary maintenance, upgrades, or repairs.
Analyze or manipulate bioinformatics data using software packages, statistical applications, or data mining techniques.
Confer with researchers, clinicians, or information technology staff to determine data needs and programming requirements and to provide assistance with database-related research activities.
Create data management or error-checking procedures and user manuals.
Design or implement web-based tools for querying large-scale biological databases.
Develop or apply data mining and machine learning algorithms.
Document all database changes, modifications, or problems.
Extend existing software programs, web-based interactive tools, or database queries as sequence management and analysis needs evolve.
Maintain awareness of new and emerging computational methods and technologies.
Participate in the preparation of reports or scientific publications.
Test new or updated software or tools and provide feedback to developers.
Train bioinformatics staff or researchers in the use of databases.
Write computer programs or scripts to be used in querying databases.
Conduct quality analyses of data inputs and resulting analyses or predictions.
Confer with database users about project timelines and changes.
Package bioinformatics data for submission to public repositories.
Perform routine system administrative functions, such as troubleshooting, back-ups, or upgrades.

Qualities of Good Bioinformatics Technician

Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.

Tools Used by Bioinformatics Technician

Computer clusters
Computer workstation setups
Desktop computers
High throughput screening HTS systems
Network file servers
Nuclear magnetic resonance NMR spectrometers
Semiconductor-based sequencers
Web servers

Technology Skills required for Bioinformatics Technician

Apache Subversion SVN
Atlassian Bamboo
Avaya Identity Engines
Basic Local Alignment Search Tool BLAST
Bioconductor
Bowtie
Burrows-Wheeler Aligner BWA
C
C++
ClustalW
Cufflinks
Customer relationship management CRM software
Data visualization software
Enterprise resource planning ERP software
Esri ArcGIS
Genome Analysis Toolkit GATK
GENSCAN
Geographic information system GIS software
Git
Hypertext markup language HTML
IBM SPSS Statistics
Jenkins CI
Linux
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office software
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft Visio
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Word
MySQL
Oracle Database
Oracle Java
Perl
PHYLIP
Python
R
Ruby
SAP software
SAS
Structured query language SQL
The MathWorks MATLAB
Thermo Fisher Scientific Ion Reporter
TopHat
Voice over internet protocol VoIP system software
Web browser software
Word processing software

US Universities

How to become Bioinformatics Technician in 2024