A survey found that the majority of bio developers write code and use machine learning.Protein engineering is a top priority

Cradle, the platform that helps scientists design and program proteins, today unveiled the results of its first BioDeveloper survey, revealing biodeveloper methods and priorities to build a holistic view of trends in the field of synthetic biology. was investigated. The survey was conducted among his 150+ bio developers and conducted in partnership with Bits in Bio, a global community focused on building scientific software.

Key findings from the survey include:

Coding is now a core skill for biologists, and most are self-taught.

• Coding is now an essential skill for anyone working in the biotechnology field. More than 8 in 10 wet lab scientist respondents (87%) are currently writing code. 55% of her respondents write scripts to automate workflows on a weekly basis, and 39% program data engineering or pipelines on a weekly basis.
• The majority report learning their coding skills on their own. Three-quarters (74%) of all respondents learned through work and 63% through school or education
• Python was the most popular coding language 97% of respondents have used it for data analysis within the last 12 months. The next most common coding language was shell (Bash/Powershell) (used by 62%), followed by R (53%), SQL (41%) and HTML/CSS (13%).

Majority of bio developers already use machine learning

• Machine learning is now an established tool in biology. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of bio developers said they currently use machine learning at work. Of the companies using machine learning, 26% of him use it weekly and 20% use it monthly.
• 4 out of 10 people working at Insilico now use ML (80%) and 68% of wet lab scientists currently use ML.
• Machine learning adoption will continue to grow. 82% of people not yet using machine learning at work say they would be interested in using it in the future.

Protein engineering is a priority for biodevelopers

• Proteins are a major area of ​​interest for biodevelopers. The survey found that 71% of his respondents are already working on protein engineering or would like to explore it in the future.
• Protein engineering offers a wide range of applications. Enzymes, antibodies, short peptides and gene regulatory proteins were all areas of interest. Within the next 12 months, 53% are interested in enzymes and 44% want to work on gene regulatory proteins.

As a business founded to make it easier for biologists to design and build proteins, we want to understand how biologists use technology in their work and what they use it for. I wanted to understand. It is interesting that coding and machine learning are playing a growing role in biology, and it is clear that bench scientists are leveraging these tools to advance their research. With the rapid growth and maturity of AI technology, it is likely that this will become the standard of work for biologists going forward.

I was also impressed by the focus on protein design. Proteins have the potential to become central tools to tackle the big challenges of the future. From tackling climate change and pollution, to treating disease and generating green alternative resources such as food, clothing, materials and chemicals. It’s great to see so much interest from biodevelopers in this area, demonstrating a growing awareness of the potential proteins have for solving many of the world’s most important problems. That’s it. ”

Steph Van Gleeken, Cradle CEO and Co-Founder

Bits in Bio was created to provide a space for people building at the intersection of software and science. An important part of our job is gathering feedback from the community on the tools and technologies they use on a daily basis. We hope that sharing these results broadly will facilitate communication among biodevelopers about best practices. It’s clear that software is becoming increasingly important to scientific discovery, and we are dedicated to helping both scientists and developers navigate this exciting intersection. ”

Nicholas Larus-Stone, Sphinx Bio CEO, Creator of Bits in Bio

of Current state of tech bio This report is based on a survey of 157 respondents from 18 countries around the world. The survey ran from November 28, 2022 to January 5, 2023.