Ep5 Public Health Perspective by The Bioinformatics Lab published on 2023-09-09T11:47:23Z Kevin Libuit began his career in public health bioinformatics in Virginia, USA, while Andrew Page's experience mainly leans towards the academic side. Differences between Academia and Public Health: - Academia is flexible, allows for experimentation, and tends to focus on niche, blue-sky research. - Public health emphasizes quality, validation, reproducibility, and the impact on real-world actions, such as informing government responses or legal actions related to health concerns. Tool Development and Use: - Academia often reinvents tools, leading to many solutions for the same problem. - Public health focuses on the implementation and consistent use of tools for actionable insights. - Challenges arise when academic tools are left unsupported after their initial development, whereas public health relies on long-term tool support. - Containerization, like Docker, helps maintain a consistent and reproducible tool environment. Training and Workforce: - Academia tends to be cutting-edge, while public health focuses on stability and intent. - Upskilling public health scientists to use bioinformatics tools is crucial, often emphasizing tool usage rather than deep technical understanding. Collaboration: - Close collaboration between academia and public health yields the best outcomes. - Such collaborations help in aligning the innovation from the academic world with the real-world applications in public health. Publication: - Manuscripts pull together all elements of a study, ensuring clarity, validity, and ease of implementation across different labs. They help translate work from one public health lab to another. Conclusion: The episode delved into the distinctions and overlaps between academic and public health bioinformatics, highlighting the importance of collaboration and communication between the two realms. Genre Science