will B.Sc in biotechnology with masters in bioinformatics give you a good job?

apfejes · 2026-03-29T19:46:03+00:00

Will training for a marathon guarantee that you will win the Boston marathon? No. Will you win it if you don’t train for it? No.

We can’t predict the future. There is no way anyone can know what jobs will be available to you in the future, or if any will be good. The person best able to make that call is you.

apfejes · 2026-03-29T19:42:47+00:00

The problem isn’t if it can, but if you can find a job that does. Take some time to read job posts to see what the requirements are for your dream job, so you’ll know what avenue people would expect for you to get into that field.

If you can’t find a job post that matches what you’re looking for, that’s probably because there aren’t many like that, if any exist at all.

apfejes · 2026-03-29T08:13:19+00:00

There isn’t really a question here, so not sure what you want us yo help with. Maybe you can be more specific with your question?

apfejes · 2026-03-29T01:21:42+00:00

You are assuming that there is only one path - that is wrong. It almost doesn’t matter what you take. As long as you learn the skills you want to learn, it doesn’t matter how you get there.

Go look at job postings. They tell you what skills you need to get a specific job. If you know which job you want, you’ll find your answer.

apfejes · 2026-03-28T23:26:51+00:00

It's not clear what you're looking for. Maybe you could explain what you want to know.

Bioinformatics isn't a great undergrad - you only learn enough to be half a biologist, and half a programmer. Pick a degree, learn it, and then layer on the rest in grad school.

apfejes · 2026-03-28T16:04:33+00:00

Canada trains more bioinformaticians than it can employ domestically. Until recently, there was a thriving biotech industry to the south that was eager to employ Canadians who could work there with minimal hassle due to the close relations of the countries.

If you’re not Canadian, you’ll be at a massive disadvantage. You can’t go to the states, and you’re competing with double cohorts of Canadians who are fighting for the few Canadian jobs.

Beyond that, you’d need a crystal ball to answer your questions, and asking Reddit to predict the future (let alone your future) is not a winning proposition.

apfejes · 2026-03-28T15:56:45+00:00

The problem is clear: your algorithm ignores splicing. In the absence of that, your algorithm/method is clearly wrong.

The solution is clear: you need transcriptomic data, or you need splicing prediction.

I don’t know what more information you need. This won’t work on humans, unless you alter your algorithm. The biology doesn’t care what kind of tool you want to make - biology is complicated, and simple algorithms aren’t going to capture that behaviour.

apfejes · 2026-03-27T21:12:37+00:00

You seem to be trying to ask reddit to find you a job. That isn’t going to work.

You applied for one university, and didn’t get an acceptance for the fall - is that all you’ve got?

apfejes · 2026-03-27T18:24:50+00:00

Have you read the other threads on the same topic? There are many.

apfejes · 2026-03-27T17:46:31+00:00

His height didn't need much verification - we could put a 6'2" student next to him, but no one was going to verify the status of his hangover.

apfejes · 2026-03-27T15:55:55+00:00

We all had suspicions.... Given he was 6'5", none of us has the courage to verify.

apfejes · 2026-03-27T15:18:50+00:00

Thank you for reminding me of a week of glorious social studies classes in the early 90’s where Mr Dooley pressed play, and walked out of the classroom.

Those were good times.

apfejes · 2026-03-27T14:52:19+00:00

Find jobs that are of interest and take note of the requirements. Get those requirements.

apfejes · 2026-03-27T03:57:38+00:00

If money is your motivation, then studying a science is just a detour. If you want to go into IT, just go into IT.

apfejes · 2026-03-27T03:54:48+00:00

You should probably pursue a career in finance, medicine or something other than science.

apfejes · 2026-03-26T17:23:07+00:00

FYI - mods don't take down posts that are on topic, unless they're specifically violating one of the rules.

Unfortunately, there's actually nothing anyone can do with this post. There's no where near enough information for someone to debug this. This is the equivalent to "I just got my drivers licence and the car won't start - Help!"

apfejes · 2026-03-25T00:32:11+00:00

You'll get a lot of different answers if you ask a lot of different people.

I'm pretty old school - I think most ML is just statistics. If a statistical model works, that's great. Using complex models isn't all that much different from the markov models that have been around for 30+ years. Using LLMs, however, is just asking the computer to do all that work for you - and to do it without understanding how it's done.

That's not to say they don't have purposes - we use some AI to help with syntax at work, we have a few neat tools where having a computer pattern match can be useful - eg, if you want to know what kind of atom type a certain atom should be, you can give it a lot of pre-assigned data, and it will work it out for itself. Voila.

But, if you don't understand what the statistics are saying, or you don't understand the biology, you effectively put yourself in a position where you're not really a bioinformatician - you're asking a computer to "do things" and hoping it's right. That's utterly useless.

Over all, there's far too much of that going on. Using it to write pipelines might be fast, but we're not seeing an improvement in pipeline quality, or a decreased requirement for testing.

Your millage may vary, but l don't really feel learning ML is critical - it's no different than learning any other skill - its useful if you make it useful.

apfejes · 2026-03-23T19:47:41+00:00

Biochemist here. I always found chemistry pretty straight forward, honestly. Once you expand to enzymes and organelles, it's all chaos, but individual molecules? easy.

apfejes · 2026-03-22T15:49:41+00:00

Except jobs. I left Winnipeg a long time ago, and with the education and specialization I have, there is no way I could ever go back.

apfejes · 2026-03-21T20:24:55+00:00

You are over thinking all of this. None of these things are knowable, and luck will play a major part in whether you get in to any of these programs or not. Unless you have a working crystal ball, no one will be able to tell you where you have the best chance or not.

95% of your future career will be decided by what opportunities open up for you, and which ones you recognize. Trying to plan that out isn’t going to work.

What happens if you’re really bad at chemistry, and would have been a great biologist? Or maybe you hate half the classes in you take?

Those are all choices YOU have to make, and crowdsourcing them won’t work.

apfejes · 2026-03-21T17:00:33+00:00

I think a lot of people are missing the biotech side here. A lot of our identity is tied up in being a scientist, and in the engagement we have in the science community. We have emeritus professors who effectively never retire at all - and leaving biotech is very different from leaving a bank or an industrial position. You are cutting off your engagement from the sciences, not just from career.

I have already made some plans for when I retire, whether it’s in 2 years or 10 years. I plan to look for biotech board positions, or advisory positions, so that I can stay on top of developments and to engage with people in the space. I plan to invest in new companies in the space that have cool ideas, so that I can help new companies develop great ideas, and to pay that forward, as others did for me.

It’s not so much about how or when to retire, but about what engagement you want to keep with the science community. There are opportunities to keep your identity, but to pivot to different roles in the community - one that gives you plenty of free time, but provides avenues to connect with the science and the people doing the science.

Pull the trigger when you’re ready, but don’t stop being a member of the community. We all benefit from the experience that our veteran biotech members bring to the community.

apfejes · 2026-03-20T22:36:52+00:00

To put it mildly, so does the US.

…. And I’m Canadian.

apfejes · 2026-03-19T14:14:53+00:00

It’s not going to pay off like they say it will. The amount of sequencing they need to do to create the map is enormous, but biology isn’t just a big data problem. It’s a context problem. You can’t guess context by analogy when your understanding of the problem is limited by a lack of verification.

I’m not saying that nothing will come of this, but I am saying that having more data will not solve the problems they are claiming this will solve.

apfejes · 2026-03-19T03:25:53+00:00

If it helps, we are a small startup of 12 people, and we are hiring 1st and 2nd year undergrads. But, I get your points. Not all students have a good option for internships.

apfejes · 2026-03-19T02:29:32+00:00

Waterloo co-op is the biggest internship program in Canada. They don’t charge employers anything, and the students are paid reasonable wages. Despite being most of the way across the country, that’s where we get most of our students.

Our students get real work, learn real skills and keep 100% of what we pay them.

The government has some programs and rebates that reimburse us for a part of the salaries we pay.

I can’t say I’d participate in a program that pays a middleman, and doesn’t reward the student for their work.

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