Bioinformatics and genomics resources on reddit

 

Although many people in this field turn to sites like SEQanswers and Biostars to get help with bioinformatics problems, there are a number of subreddits that are devoted to discussion of bioinformatics and genomics. Reddit isn't just a forum for asking questions though, and people also share lots of relevant links (to papers, resources, news etc.). As a new subreddit appeared this week, I thought I'd present a quick roundup:

 

1. bioinformatics

This is the most popular subreddit in this list (in terms of readers). The posts are roughly split equally between sharing links of interest and asking questions. Some of the questions frequently relate to career advice from people wanting to get into this field.

 

2. genomics

  • URL:https://www.reddit.com/r/genomics/
  • Description: Genomics, genetics, DNA, health, and personalized medicine
  • Frequency of posts: Infrequent, ~1–5 new items per week_
  • Current readership:_ 3,085 readers

This subreddit seems to be declining in popularity. It mostly features shared links rather than people asking questions.

 

3. genome

  • URL:https://www.reddit.com/r/genome/
  • Description: Please submit primary genomics literature, discussions of primary literature (e.g. blog posts and serious news stories), and resources for genomics research.
  • Frequency of posts: Moderate, ~5–10 new items per week
  • Current readership: 211 readers

This is a relatively new subreddit and it is focused on people sharing new and interesting papers, and using the subreddit to discuss those papers.

 

4. learnbioinformatics

  • URL:https://www.reddit.com/r/learnbioinformatics/
  • Description: This is a subreddit for providing you with the most relevant academic papers, textbooks, websites, and tutorials in the field of bioinformatics. If you have any recommended resources, please feel free to post away!
  • Frequency of posts: Too early to reliably predict
  • Current readership: 299 readers

This is the newest subreddit (just a few days old), and so has only attracted about a dozen posts. The intended role of this subreddit has obvious overlaps with the other subreddits.