{"566531":{"#nid":"566531","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Launching Careers in Bioinformatics","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBenjamin Franklin famously wrote, \u201cIn this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to being a founding father of the United States, Franklin also was a scientist, so he\u2019d probably be interested in the Bioinformatics Graduate Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where another kind of certainty has been in play.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor the last five years every graduate of the program found the work they wanted \u2013 a 100-percent job placement rate. Well, almost. It turns out, there\u2019s a tiny wrinkle in that impeccable run of success, according to program director King Jordan.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s a lofty claim, to be sure, that we\u2019ve been at 100 percent for years,\u201d says Jordan, researcher at the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences. \u201cBut there is one person we know for sure that isn\u2019t working right now. He isn\u2019t sure what he wants to do yet. That\u2019s why he isn\u2019t employed.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYet.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor now, 99-plus percent will do. It\u2019s a high success rate, 10 years in the making, since Jordan arrived at Georgia Tech to help develop the bioinformatics curriculum and grow the program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe program didn\u2019t have the best record at the time; some of our graduating students were struggling to find employment,\u201d says Jordan, who came to Georgia Tech from the National Center for Biotechnology Information at NIH.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJordan and his colleagues revamped the curriculum, emphasizing active learning and practical skills. \u201cWe made the program more project oriented,\u201d he says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of the first courses, and part of the core curriculum, is programming for bioinformatics. It\u2019s taught largely by Ph.D. students and is a fundamental first-step, designed to bring everyone up to the same speed on the primary tool of the trade \u2013 the computer.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBioinformatics lies at the intersection of biology and computer science,\u201d Jordan says. \u201cSo we have a diverse cross-section of students. At one end are straight biologists, like me. At the other end, we have the programmers.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudents are given coding assignments every week, and every assignment is grounded in the actual analysis of data.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe computational genomics course takes data analysis up to another level. Students are charged with analyzing sets of genomic sequences from microbial pathogens for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe relationship between the CDC and the Bioinformatics Graduate Program has had far-reaching impact. Jordan and a team of graduate students worked closely with CDC to develop computational tools for microbial genome analysis that helped trace the source of listeria outbreaks in Colorado and an E. coli outbreak in Europe.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cStudents are producing products and technology that is being used by the CDC to address real world public health challenges,\u201d says Jordan, whose team developed and teaches the course in collaboration with the CDC.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe tools needed for a course like computational genomics keep changing, so students are expected to stay abreast of an ever-shifting technological landscape, which is moving the science briskly forward. Think about it. The Human Genome Project, completed in 2003, took 10 years and $3 billion to sequence one genome \u2013 something that can be done in a day for about a thousand dollars now.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf I teach you how to use program X today, by next year it will probably be obsolete,\u201d Jordan says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EConsequently, students are presented with the project goals and the different technical options, and then asked to evaluate which computer programs (which tools, which options) to use in their analysis.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMostly, they wind up using a combination of programs,\u201d Jordan says. \u201cIt\u2019s clich\u00e9, but it\u2019s like teaching them how to fish, how to acquire and evaluate the technology to complete the project.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile the Georgia Tech curriculum and deep-dive project experience has been an obvious selling point for the job seekers, the market for their services has expanded as well.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s more demand in the market than we can meet,\u201d says Jordan.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Bioinformatics Program is trying to help meet the demand by adding more students \u2013 this fall\u2019s incoming class of 52 students (40 master\u2019s, 12 PhD) is the biggest in the program\u2019s history, and as usual, they come from a range of backgrounds.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo, what are all of these students doing after they graduate?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor one thing, they\u2019re working in university and research institute labs. Biology is becoming a \u2018big data\u2019 science as biologists are generating massive data sets in the era of high-throughput experimentation techniques. Consequently, biologists today need people who are competent in the skills and tools used to analyze those huge data sets.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe technological revolution in DNA sequencing, which has vastly outpaced increases in computing speed over the last decade, is fundamentally transforming biological sciences in nearly all disciplines,\u201d explains Jung Choi, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, and director of the Professional Science Masters (M.S.) track in the bioinformatics program. Jordan directs the Ph.D. track.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe explosion of big data in biological sciences created a shortfall in people trained to manage and make sense of the data in the context of biology,\u201d Choi adds. \u201cBioinformatics, genomics, and computational biology are among the most rapidly advancing fields. In a research setting, our students learn how to evaluate and adapt the best\u0026nbsp;new tools and methods that emerge every year.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBioinformatics grads are finding their way into government labs \u2013 once again, the CDC has come up big, hiring seven bioinformatics grads from the past two classes. And they\u2019re also going into the private sector.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWithin biotech are two big sectors that are frequent employers of our graduates,\u201d says Jordan. \u201cThe pharmaceutical industry and the agriculture industry.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThen there is another route some students are choosing as a result of the research-intensive nature of the bioinformatics program. About a quarter of the Master\u2019s students choose to continue their education and enter Ph.D. programs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cM.S. students can go right away to pharmaceutical companies and make big bucks, but some who are exposed to research are becoming passionate about that, so they decide to go on and pursue the Ph.D.,\u201d Jordan says. \u201cThat\u2019s what I call an unanticipated benefit of our revamped focus.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELINKS:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/bioinformatics.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBioinformatics Graduate Program\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/jordan.biology.gatech.edu\/page\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJordan Lab\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Interdisciplinary graduate program has nearly perfect job-placement record"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EInterdisciplinary graduate program has nearly perfect job-placement record\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Interdisciplinary graduate program has nearly perfect job-placement record"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2016-08-22 22:13:33","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:22:23","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-08-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-08-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"566521":{"id":"566521","type":"image","title":"KingJordan","body":null,"created":"1471917371","gmt_created":"2016-08-23 01:56:11","changed":"1475895371","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:56:11","alt":"KingJordan","file":{"fid":"206934","name":"k.jordan.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/k.jordan.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/k.jordan.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":749905,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/k.jordan.jpg?itok=6ZIr5lcP"}}},"media_ids":["566521"],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"126571","name":"go-PetitInstitute"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}