u/Low-Relationship6865

Hi everyone,

I’ve been researching this topic quite a bit, asked Chatgpt and talked to a few biologists (though not bioinformaticians), but I still feel like I’m not getting clear answers. So I wanted to ask here.

I’m an 18 year old high school senior and I’ve recently become very interested in work like AlphaFold, RFdiffusion, and scGen, where AI/ML is applied to biological problems. I’m still exploring what exactly this field looks like, but I’m generally interested in the intersection of AI and complex biological systems. So I wanted to ask a few questions:

1. Do you think this field (AI applied to biology) is truly the future, or is there a significant hype element right now?
2. I often see different terms used inconsistently. Would the area I’m describing fall under bioinformatics, computational biology or something else entirely?
3. A biology professor I spoke to mentioned that bioinformatics might become less valuable due to AI automation, and that entering the field could be risky. Do you agree with that perspective?
4. I’ve been accepted to study Computer Science at ETH Zürich, which I’m currently planning to attend. For this career path, would a CS degree be the right choice or would something like molecular biotechnology, biochemistry, or biology be a better foundation?
5. Finally, I’d also like to start actively building skills in this area, but I’m not sure where to begin. I already have a background in Python and some machine learning, but I’ve never really worked with biological data and to be honest, I find the biology side a bit difficult to grasp at times. It also seems like an incredibly broad field ranging from single cell genomics to protein structure prediction, systems biology, and etc etc... Because of that I've been wondering whether it makes more sense to pick up the biology “along the way” rather than trying to learn it all upfront. I don't really know. Where would you recommend starting? Would trying to reproduce papers I find interesting be a good approach or is that maybe too advanced at this stage?

No need to answer all of the questions, I’d really appreciate any insights or experiences you can share. Thanks a lot!r

Hi everyone,

I’ve been researching this topic quite a bit, asked Chatgpt and talked to a few biologists (though not bioinformaticians), but I still feel like I’m not getting clear answers. So I wanted to ask here.

I’m an 18 year old high school senior and I’ve recently become very interested in work like AlphaFold, RFdiffusion, and scGen, where AI/ML is applied to biological problems. I’m still exploring what exactly this field looks like, but I’m generally interested in the intersection of AI and complex biological systems. So I wanted to ask a few questions:

1. Do you think this field (AI applied to biology) is truly the future, or is there a significant hype element right now?

2. I often see different terms used inconsistently. Would the area I’m describing fall under bioinformatics, computational biology or something else entirely?

3. A biology professor I spoke to mentioned that bioinformatics might become less valuable due to AI automation, and that entering the field could be risky. Do you agree with that perspective?

4. I’ve been accepted to study Computer Science at ETH Zürich, which I’m currently planning to attend. For this career path, would a CS degree be the right choice or would something like molecular biotechnology, biochemistry, or biology be a better foundation?

5. Finally, I’d also like to start actively building skills in this area, but I’m not sure where to begin. I already have a background in Python and some machine learning, but I’ve never really worked with biological data and to be honest, I find the biology side a bit difficult to grasp at times. It also seems like an incredibly broad field ranging from single cell genomics to protein structure prediction, systems biology, and etc etc... Because of that I've been wondering whether it makes more sense to pick up the biology “along the way” rather than trying to learn it all upfront. I don't really know. Where would you recommend starting? Would trying to reproduce papers I find interesting be a good approach or is that maybe too advanced at this stage?

No need to answer all of the questions, I’d really appreciate any insights or experiences you can share. Thanks a lot!