Bioinformatics Research Analysis

As you may have noticed from exploring my website (click on the orangered nose in the top left corner), I do things a little differently to other researchers and bioinformaticians. I am a neurodivergent Māori bioinformatician, cuddler of data, and theoretical geneticist, with a love for Free Software and the hacking thereof. In 2012, I started a sole-trader freelance bioinformatics business that I call GrinGene Bioinformatics.

GrinGene Bioinformatics provides a human interface between hard-to-understand computer programs and the researchers who just want to get their research done in the best way possible. An analysis task using computer programs can often be sped up 5-10 times by the application of computing methods that are appropriate to the task at hand.

GrinGene Bioinformatics also helps to optimise research workflows, enabling researchers to carry out their research faster, cheaper, and better, with particular skills in the following areas:

• Theoretical Genetics
• High-Throughput Sequencing
• Computational scripting
• Large-scale data analysis
• Program language translation (porting)
• Debugging / bug reporting
• 3D Modeling / printing

The services provided by GrinGene Bioinformatics follow David Eccles' first rule of Bioinformatics:

“First, do what's best*. If that's not good enough, do what's asked for.”

* as understood at the time of analysis, within the time and resource constraints available.

My current work rate is NZD $75/hr; A typical bioinformatics project that I work on takes about 20 hours of work (i.e. $1500) over the course of a couple of months. For specific types of projects that I am familiar with, I offer discounts at a fixed cost for the whole project:

• Plasmid / amplicon assembly from nanopore reads: $45
• Genome assembly repeat visualisation: $65
• RNA / cDNA differential expression analysis (up to 24 samples, including replicates): $1350
• Single-cell data cleaning, normalisation clustering, and differential expression: $2300

An example typical bioinformatics project invoice can be found here. This was a self-directed programming project I carried out to design an iterative genome assembler, involving intermittent work spanning a few months, but my “keyboard time” for the project ended up being around 20 hours. If anyone is interested in the product of this project, my gitlab repository for the in-silico primer-walking program, Raynbow, can be found here.

I'm also happy to offer discounts where funding is an issue, or where clients are interested in learning how to carry on with some portion of the work themselves. I can work with pre-paid or post-paid invoices, either a fixed-amount agreed in advance, or paid for work done.

If you have a research project that you'd like help with, please contact me for a free initial consultation.