On 2005-04-01, "Meshktenye" <meshktenye at gmail.com> wrote:
> Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Steve Miller and I am
> an instructor at a local college.
Which college? Is it a 2-year, 4-year, or graduate school?
> I am requesting your assistance in developing a dynamic and challenging
> BioInformatics curriculum here at our school. We are especially
> interested in the use of BioInformatics tools for Stem Cell Research.
>From this, I gather that the college is in California. Everyone wants
a bit of the stem-cell money.
> We wish to assure our student that they are receiving the best possible
> education, utilizing the most modern equipment and cutting-edge
> technology. We want to assure our students that the training they
> receive will guarantee them a career in the field.
Bioinformatics is a large field with many different definitions.
There is no guarantee of a career in it with just a Bachelor's degree.
> What tools, resources, databases, software, manuals, specific training,
> education, knowledge, lab experience, lab equipment, etc. would be most
> helpful for an entry-level BioInformatics researcher to know? What
> tools would be most useful for Stem Cell Research?
Your focus on existing tools, manuals, and resources seems a bit
narrow---almost anything along those lines will be obsolete in 5-10
years, so the emphasis should be on longer-lasting skills (such as
being able to find the tools they need on the web and fundamental
understanding of biology and statistics, so that they can interpret
the results of the tools).
> I sincerely appreciate any assistance you can offer us in this matter.
You may want to look at the curricula for existing programs (such as
ours at UCSC). You can find a listing of programs on the web site for
the International Society of Computational Biologists:
http://www.iscb.org/univ_programs/program_board.php
There will be an education session at ISMB this summer which may also
be of use to you: http://www.iscb.org/ismb2005/
------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus karplus at soe.ucsc.eduhttp://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
Affiliations for identification only.
