Is gender bias lagging women to move forward in (fields of Biology/Bioinformatics) developing countries?

Can we ever get rid of calling our bosses as 'Sir'/'Madam'?

This applies to Indian universities and communique exchanged with officialdom.  Scientists and Researchers, Professors can be better greeted with their first names.  How nice, if we call them by first names?  Leaving the heck of egoes behind, let's try calling them with first names.  Even salutations like Dr., Prof., Mr. etc. can be given a good bye.

Let's try that! Why not from today?

Should bioinformatics be taught from schooling?

What according to you is the best tool/product launched in Bioinformatics?

Is there a room for commercialization whilst respecting open access?

Is there a room for understanding EST sequences better?

Cometh denovo sequencing, EST analysis is given less importance. But given the fact that the EST annotation can bring some clues for better understanding the genes present in the organism, there must be a specific EST pipeline annotation system that needs to be improved.

What makes one to be a young investigator?

Should publications alone matter for the research to become a young PI?

Would Geneaology be key to understanding diseases and curing them better?

Is your application unattended because of poor covering letter?

Yes, that is the case for many.  A very good covering letter would be inviting for the assessment committee to look into your application and perhaps consider you for the position.

Has Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) started ruling the omics world?

The NGS has been a buzz word these days.  Thanks to cheap sequencing technologies. do you think NGS would rule the bioinformatics roost?

What according to you is the best way to start PhD?

Formulate a problem and start with a review is my choice.

What according to you can CROs make better emphasis in making a very good research industry?

Where is North East India heading in the field of Biotechnologies?

How many years of Post doctoral experience do you think one need in order to become a Principal Investigator?

Is there an increase in gap in developing clinical biomarkers for diseasome studies?

What are the pitfalls in outsourcing the genomic data for analyses? Please review the challenges

Have you used BioRuby? If so, how do you find it for Bio-programming?

Whither radiation? Whither house sparrows?

This post a-like was started some years ago. I'm sorry I hardly find house sparrows these days.

Any thoughts?

Lupus: Any Bioinformatical perspective to cure this autoimmune disorder?

Let's discuss

Can Genealogy help trace our lost genes?

Please comment!

Teaching Bioinformatics: Should online courses (and degrees) prevail?

Does patenting mean you are owning it for good? Discuss with regards to Open Access

Today, we have an option called Semi-Open Access. Right?

Whither Innovation in Biology?

Please discuss

Biologists to safe-guard environment?

What would be your role as a Biologist to oversee safe environment ( June 5 is World Environment day)

Please comment

Biologists and Bioinformaticists for Cloud

Dear All,
Do you think setting up and working in Cloud computing would be benefactor for Biologists?


What do yo think are the challenges posed?

BioWikis: should there be any consortium?

It's been often observed that many Bio-wikis are in motion now. Shouldn't there by any consortium to set up non redundancy?

Too many databases: Should there by a consortium for Bioinformatics databases?

Please opine

Mass fauna deaths: Cataclysm or contamination?

What could be the reason for recent mass fauna deaths? Please opine

what was the best bioinformatics tool/method/software you practiced in 2010

Please opine

Open Access : To what extent?

Many scientists who respect Open Access (OA) policy end up paying huge open access fee by publishing their research in OA journals. The end-user in turn reads the article for free and thereby gains knowledge. It's cyclic. To what extent the OA is/should be made open ?

Discuss!

Too many Bioinformatics software? How to choose and take home a very good tool?

Bioinformatics mesmerizes us these days. I recall there weren’t many tools a decade ago. But today there are umpteen tools all over the web that are available for the community. It’s really a daunting and a challenging task to choose the one that fits for your research. The following steps may be followed on how to choose a tool

1. Understand the algorithm and intricacies behind the functioning of tool. This will help you to understand if the tool you are to work would solve the purpose. If needed discuss with your colleagues on questions/issues pertaining to it.
2. Always try to comprehend the advantages and pitfalls; understand if the tool has a tendency of being novel.
3. Always try to use a tool that has been tested/validated/trained on various datasets. Training and testing proves very important for the tool to have a high impact.
4. Always go through the entire article corresponding to the tool. If you have too many tools across the aspect you are searching, why don’t you just end up reading abstracts and conclusions of those articles and then sort your articles?
5. Understand the fundamental algorithms besides going into pertinent details/options/categories/tools. This would enable you to make the best choices for particular research interests.
6. The tool cited in a high impact journal doesn’t always necessarily mean that it is the best. You may try to use other tools and write pros and cons of all the tools across the features.
7. Finally, if you don’t like any feature, why don’t you make a high impact on that research in developing a tool? Of course, you need to be a smart bioinformaticist for that :-)

And yet, another Nobel week coming up! Aren't you excited?

Should a graduate student be allowed to mentor students?

If so, could this be considered for the candidate's grade?

Do you enjoy attending virtual conferences with similar pace as on site conferences?

Please comment!

Entrepreneurs in Biology

Dear All,
I see very few entrepreneurs in Biology based research. Do you have any thoughts?

Remain
prash

After B.Tech. in Bioinformatics, What?

In India, several undergrads have this question. Ever since B.Tech in Bioinformatics was started in India, people wondered how good the course be. There were several students who attended Masters of Technology in Bioinformatics. I just leave heavy thoughts in mind for this blog readers that, shouldn't the student think of a PhD soon after his under graduation, if s/he has a penchant for research?


Please comment!

Have you ever over stressed yourself whence research?

Dear All,
I was wondering if you have over stressed yourself when doing research or projects?
If so, how could you cope up?

I have expressed my views earlier in http://prashbio.wordpress.com

Remain
Prash

Toll Access for publishing

Dear All,

Recently, one of our articles was published in JPR and it is to be allowed free access for the first two weeks as "Just Accepted Manuscript" This is so-called a kind of Toll access!

Any thoughts?

Regards
prash

Would birds live in the nests we make?

I was wondering if this is the case. Did you ever try?

Regards
prash

But.. why Bt. Brinjal?

This question prevails in my mind. For Indian contemporaries, I don't think this king of vegetables fit. Even if it's worth taking a try, are we nuts about going for toxicology tests ?

If you are asked to change one thing in Indian Science, What is that you would like to ?

Please opine. All opinions are to be made constructive

Studying Fluxes in organisms

How relevant is this towards understanding Systems?

Should there be more than 50% discounts/waivers for student participants who wish to attend conferences or events ?

There is an urgent need for mentors in Biology. Do you agree?

How do you think mentors in biology should exercise their duties?

Writing a White paper in Bioinformatics: How?

Please discuss

Do you agree that virtual projects is the way to carry out projects towards partial fulfilment of graduate studies?

Agree: Yes or No?

Please cite the reasons

Which Scripting language would you recommend for Biologists?

Bioperl?
Bioxml?
Biopython?

Do you think Post doctoral experience is a must to be in academia?

Please opine

Another Influenza H1N1 on roll...

Image Courtesy : commons.wikimedia.org


Discuss!

Research demands patience. Discuss!

Have you been a tolerant researcher? Please discuss!

Stem Cells Revisited! Courtesy : Obama

Do you hail Obama's decision? Please opine on how far it benefit Biotechs?

Do you agree that all Biologists aren't good Entrepreneurs?

The other way round is Should Biologists back Entrepreneurship?

What are the researches that excited you in 2008? What would you like to see in 2009?

What are the researches that excited you in 2008? What would you like to see in 2009?

Do you think recession did effect Bioinformatics?

Provide penny of your thoughts on how could a biologist or a researcher tackle these issues?

Kudos to Nobel Laureates 2008

Kudso to all nobel prize award winners!

Do you find any controversy in these awards this year especially in Medicine?

Please comment

Do you think the impact of your research depends on the funding you have?

Would you be interested to work bar funding?


Image courtesy: www.czen.org

Ageing and ethics

With longevity gene having found, where do we see the ethics, values and policy choices? Do you think we should allow a person to live up-to 125 years?

Ageing and ethics?

with longevity gene discovered in human (http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080831/full/news.2008.1070.html ), do you think a person is allowed to live 125 years?
what Ethics, Values, and Policy Choices ... would you see in this?

Do you think aborting a handicapped foetus is allowed?

Recent news from various countries disallows handicapped foetus to be aborted
Opine!

Biology meets Mathematics. Discuss

With Bioinformatics clubbed with cross-disciplinary subjects, there is a growing emphasis on Mathematical Biology. The recent discovery of role of Mathematical Biology in helping the prognosis for Leukemia therapy has been successful.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/112932.php


Discuss!

Advocating Personalized Genomics

The era of perosnalized genomics has begun with a person's genome that could be sequenced for just 100 USD by 2015. And recently, several laws have been broken with respect to descriminating people based on the genes.

Do you think there should be more stringent rules? Please opine

Whither human interactome?

Any thoughts on how the entire human interactome would look like?

Defining Omics-es

Dear All,
There are over 380 Omics-es defined so far. Ever since the Gregor Mendelian age, people started defining many omes. But when the Genome was conceptualized, it was considered from GEN+ChromosOME. While today shouldn't there be a debate for other omes as most of the omes today are always relevant to many: For example, proteomics, study of many proteins etc...

Have your say please!

Are we still evolving?

Yes, would be the answer from many. But How? Let's discuss

Does Impact factor matter?

Impact factor(IF) for a publication does matter for scientists as a measure of citations. What do you opine on papers that are published in no-so-called high IFs reach scientists?

Discuss!

Looking back at 2007: Sequencing ruled!

Dear All,

While welcoming 2008, lets keep root thoughts on sequencing, the year 2007 ushered.

What do you think of the future of next generation sequencing technologies?

Computational Epidemiology is the passion now

Computational Epidemiology in combating diseases like AIDS has become the front runners for Bioinformaticists in helping molecular biologists discover or model genes.

Are you the one in this field?

Comment

And yet another member: Cat joins the genome club. Comment!

And yet another member: Cat joins the genome club. Comment!

Courtesy:

Nature

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071031/full/news.2007.208.html

Understanding Complex Diseases : A Bioinformatical approach

Researchers have been using in silio approaches to identify some regions of interest in proteins to elucidate how complex diseases could deal with?

What and How do you think it would help us?

Federated databases on rise: The next big thing in Bioinformatics!

Would you like to see your query processed at one go for Bioinformatics databases of your interest?

If yes federated databases is the one right point to start with.
Excerpts at

http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/2164

Bioinformatics and you?

Where do you stand yourself between your research and Bioinformatics?

Comment please!

Is there a trouble with animal models?

Have you ever experienced trouble with animal models? With dog also considered a candidate model for research, what do you opine on above statement?

Personal genome maps ? Oops! Are we wasting too much money and time?

Personal genome maps ? Oops! Are we wasting too much money and time?

Opine

Excerpts from http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070521/full/447358a.html

Cells that read minds

Cells that read minds? It certainly ring bells!

Picture and excerpts from

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/science/10mirr.html?ex=1294549200&en=4b525f923a669928&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Very interesting one

Any thoughts please?

Say 'Ome' ? Not always!

Ome means many(~money) But in case of Dinosaurs..." Many had surprisingly tiny genomes"

Excerpts from
http://www.huliq.com/13968/many-dinosaurs-had-surprisingly-tiny-genomes

So "Omy" doesn't apply for such tiny genomes. What do you think?

Theoretical Model depositions in Protein Data Bank are no longer accepted: Where do we stand now?

Start October 15, 2006, theoretical Model depositions in Protein Data Bank are no longer accepted: Where do we stand now? What do you think of the theoretical structure prediction henceforth?

Comment please!

Regenerative Medicine: A Translational Research. Where are we heading?

Comment!

Picture taken from stemcell.ufl.edu

Welcome 2007: Could Mitochondrial research be the top story in 2007?

Do you believe 2007 has great future for understanding Mitochondrial disorders? Or rather do you think Mitochondrial research got to have honours for 2007? Comment please!

Good bye 2006: It was a great year of Biology

Picture taken from cyberexorcism.com

Bring out your views on what Biology has taught you for the year 2006.

Nobel prize:Full honours to RNAi and DNA!

RNAi and DNA rules!
Hearty congratulations to Drs. Andrew Fire, Craig Mello and Kornberg for getting the coveted Nobel Prize in Medicine and Chemistry respectively!

And we would for sure hope for more excitement in RNAi

Any comments?

Dog as a cancer model: More clues on rise?

From the recent paper, The dog as a cancer model from Khanna C et al, do we expect more clues and breakthroughs in Cancer research?

Expedite your views and comment

Picture taken from www.cvm.umn.edu

Art of understanding Biology: The whats and the Hows?

Understanding Biology especially the metabolism and the various pathways is important. Do you think that Biology could be understood in the form of cartoons or graphs? If so give reasons

Picture taken from microbiology.ucdavis.edu

Polio-free world: A dream come true for all!

picture taken from www.immune.org.nz

We celebrate second anniversary for biospot.blogspot.com. Our thought now is on:

It has been 51 years, the polio vaccine exists and now we hope for polio free world.
Expedite your views on vaccination, the pitfalls, The defensing vaccination programmes etcteras.

Computational Systems Biology Vs. Molecular Systems Biology

Any thoughts?

Picture taken from www.sysbio.de

Cure for Autism: Start from Psyschologists and an end note from Biologists

Picture taken from pbs.org

How many (protein-coding) genes in Human?

Owing to the recent genome re-sequencing of chromosome 1, there has been changes amended in numbering total genes in Humans. The then 100,000 to now 20,000 odd!
Any comment on this please?

Aging research: The what, the why and the hows to combat the age-related diseases

Discuss!




Picture taken from
http://www.beeson.org/images/navpic.jpg

Drug trial horror: Do we need to revisit fundamental laws?

Owing to the recent drug trial horror , do you think we need to revisit the laws and rights? Air your views please!

Understanding Avian Infuenza: Discuss!

Welcome 2006: What do you foresee?

Science J declares Evolution as the breakthrough of the year 2005. Bring out the limelight of the impeccable nuances in present day biotechnologies and tell us what do you foresee as the breakthrough of the year 2006.

Thanks for your attention and wishing you a new year with happiness, health, prosperity and best researches ahead.

HIV : Human Immunodeficiency Virus OR Human INITIATIVE-deficiency Virus?

This is the second time we are going to discuss on AIDS in Biospot. Last year the same day I remember we had a good discussion!

Bring out your views keeping in view of the vaccine!

Thanks in advance!

PS: Picture taken from www.unaids.org

Microarrays: from gene to protein

Bring out the progress and promises in this field.

Thanks to the guest moderator : Nalini vudattu,Karolinska Institute, Sweden

"Indians Embrace Science, But Can't Always Practice It"

says Pallava Bagla*, Indian correspondent for the journal Science
(SCIENCE 309)

What do you opine? Do you think India, now being projected as the next big knowledge superpower would remain a distant dream. What steps would you suggest to practise it?

From the India Science Report
PS: Picture taken from

Comparative genomics! What has it yielded till date?

Comparative genomics! What has it yielded till date? Comment keeping in view the recent sequence available from Chimp

Anniversary limelight chat

Dear All,

Looking beyond the year 2020, How would you think that the world of life science research be? (or rather you want to vision). Please opine considering the present scenario in genomics, biotechnology, nanotechnology etcetera. The best article would be redeemed with a gift.

Yours in Biospot

Celebrating one year

Since its inception, Biospot has had an opportunity to hear the opinions of few researchers in life sciences on more than 12 topics. The aim of Biospot is as simple as an adaption of Immanuel Kant's quotes :

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Biospot hopes you would join this great life science world reach past success through your opinions.

Thank you for your attention

Open Source : Do you vote for?

Open source is a way of retrieving, finding and applying the presentations, books and publications on a free/semi-free basis without any cost. Do you think that we need to pay amount for publications? Or should we go for open source? Leave your comments..

Three foremost concerns in Environment?

June 5 was celebrated as World Environmental day. What three steps do you think is important for a better environ?

Comment Please!!

Chimeric research!!! What do you opine?

Chimeric research!!! Yes, it is under way. What do you opine?Comment on interface with how do you thing it is important in using two or other organisms for transplantation research??

Golden Rice! Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Golden Rice! Yesterday, today and tomorrow. How would you value it?
A hype or hope?
Comment on interface with nutrition, green revolution, generation and technology