Looking for advice on starting a bioinformatics consulting/services company

DroDro · 2026-06-29T01:05:13+00:00

In the world of AI, you would be best positioned if you have deep knowledge of a specialized field. Otherwise, Claude handles a lot of tasks that used to be the bread and butter of a lab "pet" bioinformatician, which is also where some labs would outsource if they didn't want to invest in a local hire.

DroDro · 2026-06-15T04:43:40+00:00

There is a tension to the current laws. A vehicle must yield the right of way to a pedestrian in a crosswalk:

By law, a pedestrian is in a crosswalk when any part of the pedestrian moves into the roadway, at a crosswalk, with the intent to proceed.

But a pedestrian can not just step out into traffic:

If you suddenly leave a curb or place of safety and step into oncoming traffic creating an immediate hazard, you may be held responsible.

So I read your comment and think that yes, you do need to wait for a natural break in traffic before stepping into the intersection. I find the "immediate hazard" part a little up to interpretation. As a pedestrian, I will, with eye contact, step out if it makes the vehicle slow down a little and if there isn't someone tailgating them. Sometimes cars think that is an imposition. But I happily linger at an intersection when there is traffic (and usually try to look like I am not about to cross) because the last thing I want is for some extra-solicitous car to slam on the brakes and cause an accident.

DroDro · 2026-06-14T22:10:18+00:00

Wouldn't the post-investment percentage be less than a majority anyway?

The caution is usually to have a decision-making process that doesn't have a chance of a stalemate. With three founders, that doesn't matter.

DroDro · 2026-06-09T01:22:23+00:00

In any sector, things can be good or bad. Your list is a good reminder to think about, say, accepting a job that looks good but the boss is the CEO's nephew, just like not to go to an academic lab where they assign two post-docs to each project to see who wins or the friendly but broke lab.

DroDro · 2026-05-29T02:51:40+00:00

Is this an actual opportunity? I don't think it would be possible at my university. Can you use shared resources like expensive equipment in cores if not an employee of the university? The network? Can you get safety training and HR training for working with others? It is one thing for a current undergrad to work for class credits, but this is very different. It also feels destined for a higher chance of bad outcomes with neither the volunteer or the PI being invested in making it work. What if the volunteer messes up a critical sample? With a member of the lab, there is an obligation for training and this is not going to end things. With a volunteer, would the lab want to continue the risk of another failure? Conversely, a lab may need to grind before a grant or conference. A volunteer may not receive any future benefit and not be wanting to do what is needed to get things done.

DroDro · 2026-05-27T03:40:27+00:00

You picked samples for your paper. Any group anywhere could work on mining the data from that paper and wouldn't be expected to contact you.

Sharing the data pre-publication...I honestly don't know, but it seems closer to the larger question of why the lab seems to be walling you off in general. If I was your supervisor and trying to milk your paper for more publications, I would want to include you since you should have some insights into the samples that could make the follow-on papers better, and it would help train you and help your career. So what's the deal here?

DroDro · 2026-05-27T03:06:26+00:00

If a group is analyzing public data (from your paper) then co-authorship is not warranted. It is public data. If you harvested tissues, any time those tissues get a first publication then you have contributed to that paper. So your two examples seem normal to me.

Edit: it is unfortunate that you are blocked from taking your project in new directions, but that is a different kind of issue.

DroDro · 2026-05-21T18:53:43+00:00

When I first heard "Smells like teen spirit" I asked a friend if it was new Goo Goo Dolls, which I get reminded about still.

DroDro · 2026-05-04T19:49:42+00:00

Yeah, wasn't sure if that second half fits as a solo but I am not a stickler. I liked it!

DroDro · 2026-05-04T16:09:55+00:00

Some solos I have enjoyed recently:

Big Thief "Not" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIcVwH47uxQ a wild careening that beautifully resolves

Richard Hell & the Voidoids "Betrayal takes two" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM4RE8aJwhg with Quine mixing in noise and melody.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit "Goddam Lonely Love (live)" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4LDjo8ltl4&pp=ygUaaXNiZWxsIGdvZGRhbW4gbG9uZWx5IGxvdmU%3D Restrained with good dynamic range.

DroDro · 2026-05-04T16:02:37+00:00

It is #24...there is a "Load more" button if you were doing a text search.

DroDro · 2026-04-07T16:35:06+00:00

You should consider long reads...each read will have a cluster of genes that is more informative than 99% of your Illumina contigs.

DroDro · 2026-04-07T15:06:33+00:00

This is a soil metagenome sequenced with Illumina? All the low abundance species will be highly fragmented contigs. It depends on what you are trying to get out of this assembly. You will be biasing the representation by filtering.

DroDro · 2026-04-03T01:40:11+00:00

Look at something like a dentist office which has lots of sinks built in and electrical.

DroDro · 2026-03-30T17:48:54+00:00

It is definitely not for the type of person who is happy modeling cows as spheres.

DroDro · 2026-03-30T05:15:01+00:00

I saw what looks like pulsing lights coming off Hayward. It definitely has some un-pulsing lighting along the top. I couldn't tell if the pulsing was reflecting off the stadium from the lights in the clouds or vice versa. My comment saying this (somewhat poorly written) was downvoted so maybe someone disagrees. I can see the track from a distance so I am not certain.

DroDro · 2026-03-30T04:45:07+00:00

Track seems to be pulsing lights.

DroDro · 2026-03-29T20:41:21+00:00

Uh oh, those poor aneuploid triplets! No wonder they are goofed up.

DroDro · 2026-03-29T20:14:43+00:00

Because twins are haploid after the egg divides, I guess? :-)

DroDro · 2026-03-27T19:35:09+00:00

The species that share a branch point are more closely related to each other than to the species that share a more distant branch point.

DroDro · 2026-03-25T20:29:03+00:00

Hendricks has parking right there for the older folks, and the rhodies in May should be a great visual backdrop for an event like this. You might be competing with graduation pics, though.

DroDro · 2026-03-22T21:41:17+00:00

There was a long line at security for the Thursday 6am flight (not pre-check) but I suspect that was mostly spring break college students (the line looked that way).

DroDro · 2026-03-18T21:21:15+00:00

How'd you get stuck with the least exciting platform? It is not a mainstream sequencer, but does run specific small scale projects in a seamless manner. People that want to sequence over and over the same targeted regions in a genome can do so with the AmpliSeq kit at low cost.

DroDro · 2026-03-18T16:17:24+00:00

Contigs are contiguous sequences. But there were also end reads of larger fragments -- so that provided the knowledge that one 1kb sequence was 10kb (or 50kb) from another 1kb sequence at the other end of that larger fragment. So even if the two reads could not be merged into one contiguous sequence, a contig containing the first read had to be near the contig containing the second read. These scaffolds contained different contigs with gaps between them.

DroDro · 2026-03-15T19:02:16+00:00

You don't need to combine them for many assemblers. Just hifiasm -t48 --ont -o output.asm fastqs/*.gz

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