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Cross-functional individuals

Nature Biotechnology volume 29, page 49 (2011)Cite this article

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In the course of compiling this survey, several investigators remarked that it tends to be easier for computer scientists to learn biology than for biologists to learn computer science. Even so, it is hard to believe that learning the central dogma and the Krebs cycle will enable your typical programmer-turned-computational-biologist to stumble upon a project that yields important novel biological insights. So what characterizes successful computational biologists?

George Church, whose laboratory at Harvard Medical School (Cambridge, MA, USA) has a history of producing bleeding-edge research in many cross-disciplinary domains, including computational biology, says, “Individuals in my lab tend to be curious and somewhat dissatisfied with the way things are. They are comfortable in two domains simultaneously. This has allowed us to go after problems in the space between traditional research projects.” A former Church lab member, Greg Porreca, articulates this idea further: “I've found that many advances in computational biology start with simple solutions written by cross-functional individuals to accomplish simple tasks. Bigger problems are hard to address with those rudimentary algorithms, so folks with classical training in computer science step in and devise highly optimized solutions that are faster and more flexible.”

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  1. H. Craig Mak is Associate Editor, Nature Biotechnology,

    H Craig Mak

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Mak, H. Cross-functional individuals. Nat Biotechnol 29, 49 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0111-49

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