A chance encounter, about a year ago, with some interesting minds in the field of biomedical publishing had me going back to my roots: biology. I’ve been fascinated by science from a young age, particularly biology, which I studied and practiced for many years before a wormhole whisked me away and plopped me in the middle of the mobile phone industry.
The consequence of this chance encounter with biologists was for me to reconnect and catch up with what was happening in biology. I really don’t know if my fresh eyes are actually seeing something new or if my absence has made me susceptible to an incomplete model of where biology is going. In any case, what I do see are some exciting developments.
To get to the point, I see three major biology trends that present enormous opportunities:
1) Synthetic biology – from crafting whole genomes to messing with computational biology, we are seeing a renaissance of microbiology and microbial genetics.
2) Personal genomics – as genomic analysis tools like sequencing machines and micro-arrays get cheaper, the ability to rapidly analyze ones own genome at some level becomes a reality.
3) Biological publishing – the sheer volume of scientific publications and data, and their increasing availability in open access digital formats, is straining the way scientists explore, syncretize, and contribute to knowledge. [I need to find a better term for this, as it’s not about publishing but the whole cycle of the info.]
These three areas have been consuming a lot of my brain cycles, with resultant decrease in posting the thoughts down here. I suppose I needed to mull these things over before starting to haver about them.
I thought I was ready to knock these off but have been having a fun time following the cognections radiating off from these topics. I have a lot of bookmarks with partially read stories. So, further posts on these topics will come slowly as I continue to digest.
Wow. It’s nice to use one’s brain.
Image from ynse
