Chatomics! — The Bioinformatics Newsletter
Why Subscribe?✅ Curated by Tommy Tang, a Director of Bioinformatics with 100K+ followers across LinkedIn, X, and YouTube✅ No fluff—just deep insights and working code examples✅ Trusted by grad students, postdocs, and biotech professionals✅ 100% free
That UMAP Plot Might Be Lying to You—Here’s What You Need to Know
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, Tommy here. It was a crazy week that I had 2 presentations. I am always nervous when speaking in public. Then, I realized pressure is always there, no matter what stage of life you are in. I rehearsed 10 times before my PhD defense Enough life lessons (I started to write life lessons beyond my bioinformatics posts, ignore them if you only like bioinformatics!), Today, let’s talk about how dimensionality reduction—PCA, t-SNE, UMAP—can shape the way we see...
Are We Learning Anything From 1 Million Cells? The Hidden Crisis in Single-Cell Genomics
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, Happy July 4th! If you celebrate it. We had two days off, so I enjoyed staying at home reading books. The best way to learn something new is by reading. Then apply what you read to a practical problem. Repeat, practice. You will find a better version of yourself in 10 years! I had a conversation on a podcast talking about AI and bioinformatics. Hope you enjoy it! Today, we will talk about single-cell studies. How many cells are needed? How many cells are needed?...
New post from chatomics! Mastering Bioinformatics in the Age of AI: Foundational Skills for the Modern Scientist
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, I enabled my blog https://divingintogeneticsandgenomics.com/#posts RSS feed. So whenever I have a new blog post, it will be sent to your email. This is different from my weekly Saturday newsletter. My blog posts are mostly technical tutorials. This is new update from my blog: Mastering Bioinformatics in the Age of AI: Foundational Skills for the Modern Scientist Published on July 4, 2025 To not miss a post like this, sign up for my newsletter to learn...
How to upskill your bioinformatics skills
Hello Bioinformatics lovers and new subscribers, Tommy here. How was your week? It was a busy week for me. I first attended the FoG (Festival of Genomics) conference in Boston and co-taught a bioinformatics upskilling workshop with Dean Lee. We had a full room of people! If you want to follow a practical guide to upskill your bioinformatics skills, read the PDF here. I then gave a talk on "Good Enough Practices for Reproducible Bioinformatics Analysis" at Moderna. Read the PDF here. The...
Your CRISPR Hit Isn’t a Cancer Drug (Yet)—Here’s Why
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, Tommy here. Recursion, the AI star company, recently laid off 20% of its people. It is a humble reminder that Drug discovery is hard. Biology is more complicated than many thought. AI drug companies that do not have deep domain biology knowledge will inevitably fail. Today's newsletter is a simple example: Why Your CRISPR Screen Hit Might Be a TrapFrom bioinformatics insight to therapeutic reality. You ran a CRISPR screen. You found top hits that kill cancer...
How Sample Naming Wastes Millions—and What Bioinformatics Can Do About It
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, Tommy here. I was interviewed yesterday by Nature yesterday, about best practices using spreadsheets and naming files. P.S.: This is a must read for any scientists (both wet and dry) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00031305.2017.1375989 It turns out to be a big problem for bioinformaticians. How many hours do bioinformaticians lose matching sample IDs across assays?Too many.And every one of them is avoidable. Let’s talk about why this keeps...
New post from chatomics! How to calculate partial correlation controlling cancer types
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, I enabled my blog https://divingintogeneticsandgenomics.com/#posts RSS feed. So whenever I have a new blog post, it will be sent to your email (after I edit it). This is different from my weekly Saturday newsletter. My blog posts are mostly technical tutorials. This is new update from my blog: How to calculate partial correlation controlling cancer types Published on May 22, 2025 To not miss a post like this, sign up for my newsletter to learn computational...
Your sequencing failed? Maybe you're studying bacteria, not human.
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, After 13 years of analyzing sequencing data, I am an "expert" in doing it. I gained those experiences not because I am smarter, but simply because I made more mistakes and I have encountered more problems. Today, I will talk about: The Hidden Enemy in Your Cell Line: Mycoplasma Contamination Have a cell line with poor sequencing results? Low mapping rates? Before you blame the aligner, stop. You might be sequencing bacteria instead of human. 1. The Dirty Secret of...
“Can you make a figure for my talk tomorrow?” — Why bioinformaticians lose sleep (and sanity)
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, I am eager to send you my weekly newsletter because I can not wait to see you smile. Of course, I can not see your smile, but I can imagine... I hope the little nuggets make you feel heard and learn something useful. Today, we will talk about this dreadful situation we all face: Can you make a figure for my talk tomorrow?” — A Day in the Life of a Bioinformatician If you’ve ever worked with wet lab collaborators, this line will sound familiar: “I have a...
Feel like you're falling behind in bioinformatics? Read this.
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, Tommy here. It is a long weekend here in the US. Make sure you take a break and do some activities with your family. Below is something I feel myself too. We all get overwhelmed If you've ever felt overwhelmed in bioinformatics—like you're constantly behind, like everyone else is ahead—you’re not alone. Let me show you why that feeling isn’t failure.It’s the nature of the field. In 2012, I started learning bioinformatics.Back then, ChIP-seq was the shiny new...
Why Subscribe?✅ Curated by Tommy Tang, a Director of Bioinformatics with 100K+ followers across LinkedIn, X, and YouTube✅ No fluff—just deep insights and working code examples✅ Trusted by grad students, postdocs, and biotech professionals✅ 100% free