OmicsLogic Code Playground
Life sciences are going through a major transformation: the growing volume, velocity, and variability of collected data are demanding an ever-increasing level of data management, wrangling, and analysis skills. The problem is that many students that don't know about this trend when starting their biotechnology or other life sciences training are often excluded from such coursework.
As a company that specializes in big data analysis and integration, it has always been our passion to make bioinformatics more accessible. We already have a platform for learning about bioinformatics in the context of a project-based curriculum, but previously we downplayed the importance of coding to our participants. In part, it was due to the fact that many biologists just don't have the time to learn a new skill and in part, it was due to the challenges in getting the initial coding challenges out of the way (setting up the environment, sharing files, resolving dependencies).
But now, I am excited to share that our team has developed a solution to this problem: The Omics Logic Code Playground. This is an online bioinformatics coding exercise collection that will help anyone learn and practice R and Python scripting and understand how to analyze and visualize -omics data to extract meaningful insights from large biological datasets.
As a result, we now offer a complete Omics Logic training experience that is available online and at our partner institutions:
- Projects sourced from high-impact research publications in oncology, biotechnology, neuroscience, agriculture, and infectious diseases.
- Big data cloud resources for storage, processing, analysis, and integration of multi-omics data.
- A library of asynchronous training materials for faculty, students, and researchers
- Code Playground designed around visualization, interpretation, and machine learning for omics data.
- The community of beginners and experts that are actively learning and working on research problems in an interactive environment. (Check out our LinkedIn group here)
We are excited to launch today and offer the courses in several pre-configured packages in R and Python: code.omicslogic.com. These include exercises on the very basics (Introduction to Bioinformatics) as well as advanced methods (these are taught in our Omics Logic Data Science Program) that are useful for large RNA-Seq studies like classification, feature selection, and regression.
The code playground makes it easy to learn such languages using a pre-configured environment for such scripting. There are no installations needed, the code will run directly in the browser and we have implemented our point system to connected the coding challenges to our asynchronous bioinformatics curriculum.
To get started, you have to register and take a free course. If you like the experience, a premium starter package will grant you access to all of the materials for just $10 per month. Get started today to learn, practice, and achieve bioinformatics greatness with concise exercises and interesting challenges right in the comfort of your browser!