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
Bulk vs. Single-Cell RNA-seq: Use the Right Tool, Not the Flashy One
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, Tommy here. I was on the bioinformatics lab podcast. Check it out if you want to hear my story. Today, we will talk about single-cell RNAseq. (btw, I made this PCA and CCA for cell annotation tutorial for you) You don’t always need single-cell RNA-seq. In fact, in many cases, it’s the wrong tool for the job. We get it—single-cell RNA-seq is hot. It feels cutting-edge. But too often, researchers jump to it without asking a critical question: Is this the best method...
5 Papers Every Computational Biologist Should Read (and Revisit Often)
Hello Bioinformatics lovers, I came back home 10:30 pm last night from a panel discussion.( I was exhausted and did not have the strength to write it last night) That's why today's newsletter is a little late 😞 Today's newsletter is short. But is extremely important. I wish I had been taught how to organize the project better, but here you are! These foundational papers aren’t about algorithms or flashy tools. They’re about how to work well—how to organize, code, and collaborate in a way that...
New post from chatomics! How to create a GenomicRanges object in Bioconductor using canonical transcripts
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: How to create a GenomicRanges object in Bioconductor using canonical transcripts Published on July 15, 2025 To not miss a post like this, sign up for my newsletter to learn computational...
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...
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