Feature: Bioinformatics as an amusement park - the view from @RedPenBlackPen

March 29, 2017

• Tom Rickey, PNNL, (509) 375-3732

RICHLAND, Wash. - It's not often you see a Ferris wheel at a meeting of scientists. Or even a drawing of one.

But Jason McDermott's poster at this week's meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association features not only a Ferris wheel but a robot, fireworks, a roller coaster, and other features of an amusement park. The cartoon presentation - about big data - is a big departure from conventional presentations at scientific meetings.

McDermott, who regularly draws cartoons about the culture of science as @RedPenBlackPen, says his poster is about building a "new, open access educational ecosystem."

His own big-data forays regularly take him to the frontiers of ovarian cancer, cyanobacteria, and some powerful pathogens.

An explanation of McDermott's cartoon presentation can be found in this article.

Tags: Fundamental Science, Computational Science, Biology

Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Lab address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed by Battelle for the D.O.E.'s Office of Science. As the single biggest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

There are currently no comments for this story. Be the first to add a comment!
Click here to add a comment about this story.