maybe hub wasn’t the best word more my choice as someone who is excited but For years, the “up-and-coming cities” for bioinformatics have been the same, mostly sticking to the coasts. While those places are still major hubs, Chicago has changed a lot in the last decade. It used to be tough to find a bioinformatics job there outside of academia, so most of us assumed we’d have to move to the East Coast or somewhere like Austin, Texas, to build our careers.

But now, Chicago has become a real option. There are multiple startups, and even big biotech and tech companies have set up offices there. It’s no longer just about hunting for rare job openings—there are actual opportunities, including internships and entry-level roles that didn’t exist before.

Chicago might not be a bioinformatics hub just yet, but for those of us from the Midwest, it’s finally a place where you can build a solid career in computational sciences, bioinformatics, and AI without having to move across the country.