nodalpoint.org

Hi!
My name is Giovanni and I come from a biological background, having studied biotechnology in Bologna (Italy).
Actually I'm doing a stage in bioinformatics in Barcelona, at the PRBB institute.
I'm 23 years old.

I think that most of the nodalpoint posts are really very interesting, and I've learned about many useful sites and services from since I've been reading it.
Maybe, the only thing you should improve is the bandwidth of this site, because I've noticed that sometimes it takes too much too navigate into nodalpoint or to log-in.

Anyway congratulations, and break a leg for the conference! ;)

p.s. Geek details: Debian Sid; perl + python :)

All these PhD's and MD's, and here's me, just a puny undergrad struggling for college funding who just thinks bioinformatics is "nifty"...

In more detail, I'm a 33-year-old "perpetual undergrad" (attending college off and on as time permits) who's long enjoyed experimenting with computer systems who discovered the field of biotechnology during my most recent bout of college attendance (American River College's Biotechnology program). Until recently, I'd been working full-time doing database management and bioinformatics analysis for a small biotech company in Auburn, California, but sadly they're closing down, leaving me now in southeastern Idaho (telecommuting worked surprisingly well) trying to find biotech/bioinformatics type work that'll leave me able to afford finishing a 4-year degree and moving on to graduate work.

Unfortunately, nobody local seems to have an undergraduate program in biotechnology, but Environmental Science seems relatively applicable (and would allow me to indulge my particular joy in playing with "systems" and "non-medical biotechnology/bioinformatics" - my recent employer was focussed around soil microbes.), and ought to lead naturally into graduate work in Biological Systems Science/Engineering.

I "co-started" BioPHP (I started a project, only to discover that "GenePHP" had also started independently doing the same thing...in fairness, Serge had code online about a week before I did. We're in the process of merging) because I am
comfortable with the language, and see a great deal of potential for applications of it in bioinformatics (particularly for building "systems" of data exchange and analysis that operate over the internet, due to PHP's strong networking features), and because I see it as a very good "learn-by-doing" way of picking up further bioinformatics skills.

Geek info - Mess o' linux machines on the home network. Two (ancient, scrounged) laptop computers (P-100) running Debian and Slackware, "main" machine is an Athlon "XP 1800+" running a partly-self-compiled (for speed) Slackware installation and using bleeding edge kernel (2.5.73) and XFree86 and KDE 3.2 compiled out of CVS from a few days ago. A network server/NAT gateway (Slackware again, on a K6-2/500) connects the network to the internet. Two other midrange pentium scrounged machines await duty as a fax/voicemail server and such. Yes, I AM a nerd. (Married to a PhD Geologist, I have to be a nerd to keep up. Some couples have arguments about money or social issues or housework or whatnot - we argue about things like "Hydrogen Bonding"...)

And that's probably more than you wanted to know...

"Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside." -- Calvin

Pedro (not very original :)
I'm from a bio background (biochemistry degree finished one year ago). I have just one year of practical experience working with PERL, bioperl, Java JSP and some SQL server. I gave some help on a dna database that never got off the ground and did some work on yeast genome comparisons.
I'm now moving to the EMBL to start my Ph.D. in Serrano's lab to work in pathway databases.
My interest go along knowledge management, organism engineering, brain-machine interactions and nanotechlogy.

I have a small bio at my home page. Briefly, my original background was in biochemistry. Through my PhD and first postdoc (in Amsterdam) I worked on biochemical and genetic aspects of microbial denitrification. I came to UNSW in April 2000 to work on psychrophilic (cold-loving) archaea, isolated from a lake in Antarctica. At about that time our group was embarking on genome sequencing projects. At about the same time, I was becoming extremely bored with the "gels, gels, more gels" wet lab culture and looking for a new challenge. I realised that we would have to build a substantial computational base to be successful in the genomics world. Gradually, slowly and at times painfully, I convinced my boss that I needed to be released from the lab to pursue this full time. Taught myself Perl, installed Linux and here we are today.
Today I find myself a passionate advocate for bioinformatics research, education and open source software. I believe those things represent the best of what research should be all about and that all biologists could benefit greatly from these things. This puts me in something of a minority in my current working environment, but then it's our anger that drives us on :-)