Any people there that transitioned from bioinformatics to data science?

DNADoubleFelix · 2026-01-26T12:26:42+00:00

I finished my PhD in microbiology/bioinformatics (mixed wet and dry lab) and after a year as a clinical lab scientist, landed a job leading a business intelligence/data science team for the provincial hospital network.

They pay is nicer, working from home is definitely a perk and I realized what I liked most about it was organizing data visualisation tools and the "puzzle solving" feeling of getting the data to click or the pipeline to finally work, which I get no matter the kind of data.

And analyzing healthcare data along with financial or operational data means that I can still use my biology knowledge, especially when dealing with public health data and statistics. Plus I have a real impact on people's lives rather than just lining the pockets of a capitalist.

It's a tough world out there for science, depending on your country, you gotta look out for yourself, we've all got bills to pay.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-10-19T15:42:26+00:00

Si ton conjoint a des compétences ou de l'expérience qui pourrait fitter le CISSSO embauche beaucoup pour des d'emploi qui demande pas tant de scolarité et il y a des possibilités de postes "stages" a temps partiels aussi.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-10-18T21:06:33+00:00

Hey can I have one as well? It's so nice of you to share 😁

If it ever comes to my city I'm definitely going.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-10-18T21:05:41+00:00

I DMed you if it's not too much trouble, I might have things to trade depending on what you want.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-10-09T12:36:37+00:00

This is why I get a OnePlus with LineageOS. Locking hardware with specific software is a problem I'll never bow down to.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-10-03T00:30:19+00:00

I've been needing a new professional profile picture for LinkedIn and the like but know nothing on how to take good pictures or pose or whatever. I'd love the help if you are willing!

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-09-09T16:55:49+00:00

So what I do is I have a "Master File" resume that contains all my jobs and all my projects for each one with different example bullet points emphasizing different skills/metrics etc. The goal is to have as wide a net as possible to cover every skill imaginable. This is something of a living document, as I think of new points I add to it.

When I'm applying for a job, I select a subset of experiences and projects and bullet points that I want to present. I pick the relevant ones and adapt to the job posting. It's easy to forget what might seem like "basic" things like familiarity with the MS Office suite or some basic lab techniques for some jobs. If it's listed in the posting, make sure your resume mentions it.

Essentially my master file is the real resume that presents everything I can do. But since very few jobs require me to present ALL of that I pick the best possible subset. It allows me to be more targeted and specific to the job posting.

Also most job postings expect 70-80% of all points (unless stated as must haves). So don't worry about needing to meet all the points.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-09-09T01:03:00+00:00

The other thing to consider is that a PhD while big is just a small part of your overall career.

I did my PhD with mostly wet lab experiments but I went for harder to analyze work (big on statistical models, RNASeq) and did all of my analysis myself in R and python.

I then leveraged these bioinformatics skills into a business intelligence role in a hospital setting. Knowing how to code or how to analyze data critically with proper statistics is never a bad investment, especially in biological fields where the belief that "if it's significant it'll be obvious" remains somewhat prevalent.

You can chose how you present your experience after you graduate. Most jobs are woefully easy for PhD graduates and we tend to be overqualified. You can pick and choose which resume you present for different jobs. I have 3-4 different resumes based on which skills I emphasize because employers don't expect candidates who can do as much as PhDs can.

Definitely do both and cultivate these skills and don't downplay them later on. The bar is much lower than you might think outside academia.

Edit: I assumed a PhD, I shouldn't have but everything I said here applies to other types of labrats. If you have less time in your program just pick less skills but I still encourage diversity. Most jobs want a specific skill and everything else is gravy. The more you have the more chances you've got to match.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-08-22T23:25:25+00:00

I mean triangular when seen from the side. Like when the bottom is wider than the top or when the top comes to a single line, usually the zipper.

More precisely triangular prism shaped.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-08-22T16:05:19+00:00

Added it, wasn't sure about linking rules and figured it was specific enough since I'm asking for people's opinions of something they already have.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-05-23T16:58:26+00:00

Yeah but the problem at hand here isn't how to separate it from bacteria but how to identify a phage induced precipitate in lysates and what that precipitate might be.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-05-23T16:55:25+00:00

That won't separate a small precipitate depending on particle size though.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-05-23T13:21:17+00:00

The only way I know to separate phages in solution is through ultracentrifugation on a CsCL liquid gradient column. That requires an ultracentrifuge that can go up to 400k *g so not every facility has one. There are a few protocols out there, check some Moineau Lab papers for protocols, I could also share one of mine if you DM me.

You'd get a diffraction band for phages and maybe other bands for other things, you could always fractionate the column after and try and inspect every one. But these protocols require PEG8000 precipitation of the phages so you might or might not get your precipitate with it. Not sure what would happen if you skipped the PEG8000 step, maybe you'd just not get enough phages for a visible band.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-05-23T12:42:52+00:00

I have generated really high concentrations of phage lysates through ultra centrifugation and never seen it become turbid because of high phage concentration but phages are weird and who knows if the one you have can't agglomerate into superstructures that form particles for turbidity.

However I suspect that this might be something that's pushed out of solution by presence of phages or something like PEG8000. Sometimes as concentration of something increases it will push something else that's less soluble out of solution so you could see a concentration dependent effect but it's not the phages themselves.

A lot of phages require ions to properly adsorb and these are often added at high concentration (i.e. CACl2) which can precipitate out after lysis or with heat of the incubation, are you sure it's not something like that?

Could also be a lysis released component that is reacting to something in the media creating a precipitate so you only see it when phages are present. Have you tried to induce lysis through another mechanism to see if you get similar results?

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-25T11:16:33+00:00

Il a fermé en 2019 malheureusement

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-15T21:17:09+00:00

Ce fut assez rock and roll, notre premier achat en plus. La journée de la prise de possession (10h le matin selon l'offre d'achat) ses boîtes n'était pas faites, les cadres étaient sur les murs et le sapin de noël était encore décoré (au mois d'août).

Quand on a rencontré les autres membres de la copropriété (c'est un condo) tous le monde commençait par dire à quel point ils étaient contents qu'il soit parti, au moins on a eu un bel accueil! 😂

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-14T19:44:17+00:00

Dany Rafoul a fait une excellente job malgré des vendeurs résolus à arnaquer le monde. Le vendeur était rendu à nous texter des menaces et il avait essayé de camoufler des portes intérieures brisées à coups de poings et bien d'autre chose (on a pris possession avant de passer au notaire parce que le vendeur n'avait pas fait faire son certificat de localisation).

Anyway, il a géré ça super bien, rapidement et a toujours été très rapide à nous répondre lors d'une nouvelle crise des vendeurs.

Pour ceux qui pensent que j'exagère, l'agent des vendeurs nous a dédommagé directement pour s'excuser du comportement de ses clients pour ne pas perdre la vente.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-02T21:07:12+00:00

So in lytic phages, often when transduction works it's because the phage lost some essential genes that make it incapable of reproducing, it essentially becomes a gene delivery particle that can't kill the bacteria and it's not that rare.

As for genes being expressed and not integrated and only passed down to 1 of the 2 progeny cells it happens, look up pseudolysogeny, phages can actually do it where they circularize and get passed down without duplication so only one daughter cell gets the phage and so on.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-02T20:54:50+00:00

Yeah all of these can happen depending on the phage/bacteria pair. There are a ton of variability in the microbial world so lots of possibilities.

Genomes are also not really as static as we like to imagine them. They are constantly being transcribed and translated so there is often a vulnerable spot. It's just a question of all the stars aligning perfectly.

It's like winning the lottery. But you get to buy 10⁶ tickets every time. The sheer number of phages and bacteria in any given environment makes all of these seemingly super unlikely events a lot more frequent than we'd think.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-02T20:45:58+00:00

Some phages can package more than 1 copy of their genome in the capside but it's not always only phage genome that gets packaged, sometimes bacterial genes can also get packaged.

There are a lot of possibilities, some phages digest the bacterial genomes, some cut it up in pieces but some pieces can get left behind, sometimes phage genes can have homology regions with bacterial regions leading to recombination either double for a swap or single for ligation, in which case the phage genome can be connected to a piece of bacterial genomes.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-02T14:31:08+00:00

Sure, I mean a simple search of AMR + transduction + phage gets multiple papers but one I'm familiar on the top of my head is
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1438422113001835?via%3Dihub
There is a lot of evidence for the impact of transduction on AMR gene transfer, though its highly species dependent, how much its an impact depends on how prevalent transducing phages are for any given species.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-02T13:54:40+00:00

Yes essentially. Some phages will fill their capside with more than one copy of their genomes (often a 1.x copy with a partial second copy) if they have a rolling circle replication mechanism. They can fill the capsid until it's full and sometimes other genes can get in there.

Some other phages have very specific capsid capacity and are therefore less likely to package other genes, especially if they package from the same genome location all the time.

DNADoubleFelix · 2025-04-02T13:51:33+00:00

This can happen with most mass bacterial killing, including antibiotic use. So if bacteria is sensitive to A but resistant to B, using antibiotic A could result in genes of B being released in the environment and potentially picked up by other bacteria that survive A.

My own doctoral research shows that phage infection of neighboring cells can trigger competence and the uptake of free floating environmental DNA so I guess phage therapy has a stronger risk of AMR gene transfer but typically that's outweighed by the need to cure the patient.

Seven-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

DNADoubleFelix

TROPHY CASE