I swear I’m not posting this from work

Integrated Genomics Research at the University of Otago

I thought I would write a little bit about the job I got here in Dunedin. If you’re interested in genomics or bio-informatics or are just killing some time read on …

I’m working in a biochemistry lab at the University of Otago doing some bio-informatics related programming for them. For those of you unfamiliar with what bio-informatics is, wikipedia defines it as “the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology”. A simple explanation is that computers are very useful in storing and analyzing the huge amounts of data you acquire when doing any kind of research in molecular biology, whether that be genomics, proteomics or something else.

In my lab they are mainly studying microRNA, particularly the untranslated regions. Right now I am modifying a web application called Galaxy, which allows researchers to do large scale genome analysis. It provides a single place to draw on data from many different sources and use integrated tools to analyse the data. It also provides a simple API for developers to add their own tools. I am currently working on adding tools to the Otago University version of Galaxy that specialise in microRNA analysis.

If none of that made sense to you then just take my word for it, it’s pretty cool stuff!

Learning Python

Warning: This posting contains content that only people with an IT background may find mildly amusing. If you’re not one of those, feel free to stop reading now.

I’ve been teaching myself python at work, since I have no previous experience with it and will need to do some scripting. I typed in the following, which failed miserably:

>>> if !a:
File “”, line 1
if !a:
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

and then thought to myself, “friends have told me python is very easy to code with, maybe I’ll try this”:

>>> if not a:
… print “hello”
…
hello

Which worked beautifully and brought me great joy! Why don’t other languages work so nicely?