From stadiums to genomes

Most bioinformaticians are either biologists skilled in programming or programmers with an interest in biology. Mike Goodstadt, the programmer behind the 3D genome-visualization tool TADkit, took a different approach. In the early-to-mid 1990s, Goodstadt was a student at the University of Bath, UK. His course of study? Architecture, with an emphasis on 3D modelling. After graduation, he helped to design and build a 61,500-seat stadium. But a faltering economy and newly acquired programming skills helped to steer him towards biology.

Lorena Barba, reproducibility champion

Lorena Barba, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at George Washington University in Washington DC, has long championed research reproducibility. “I've always believed that the open-source model is ideal for science, as it exposes the complete sequence of steps that produces a given result,” she says. In January, she travelled to Chile to run a week-long course on reproducible research computing. The month before, she had been awarded a 2016 Leamer-Rosenthal Prize, which celebrates those “working to forward the values of openness and transparency in research”. In this Q&A, she talks flying snakes, 'repro-packs' and copyright.

The sound of DNA

With an alphabet comprising just four letters, a DNA sequence isn't much to look at. So when sequence-analysis tools want to highlight key elements, they typically do so using colour or font, or by overlaying other types of information. In the not-too-distant future, there may be another option. Molecular biologist and part-time drummer Mark Temple at Western Sydney University, Australia, describes DNA sonification, “an auditory display tool” for DNA: sequence in, audio out. “I'm not saying audio by itself is the bees' knees for interpreting DNA sequence,” Temple says, “but surely audio can contribute to your visual interpretation.”