The State of TechBio Survey aims to provide data to those who want to improve the software and tools used in the field. We hope that the community will discover insights on attitudes, tools, and environments influencing science and software today.
Survey Results are grouped into 4 sections:
Acknowledgments
A huge thank you to all the Bits in Bio community members who participated in this annual survey, as well as Nitro Bio for the technical support.
Feedback
We welcome feedback! Please reach out to Shaq Vayda with your suggestions! For any technical issues or feedback concerning this website, please reach out to survey@nitro.bio.
Survey Data
Download Data
BiB Community
Professional Experience
How did you hear about Bits in Bio?
263
Respondents
Through word of mouth (a colleague or friend)
150/263 respondents57%Bits in Bio meetup
16/263 respondents6%Search Engine
7/263 respondents3%How frequently would you say you go on the Bits in Bio Slack Channel during a typical month?
261
Respondents
A few times per month or weekly
86/261 respondents33%A few times per week
70/261 respondents27%Less than once per month or monthly
49/261 respondents19%Daily or almost daily
34/261 respondents13%Never
14/261 respondents5%Which part of Bits in Bio do you find most useful?
261
Respondents
Slack community
103/261 respondents39%Meetups
68/261 respondents26%Job Board/channel
42/261 respondents16%None
17/261 respondents7%Q&As
17/261 respondents7%Do you consider yourself a member of the Bits in Bio community?
261
Respondents
Yes, somewhat
127/261 respondents49%No, not really
64/261 respondents25%Yes, definitely
50/261 respondents19%No, not at all
13/261 respondents5%Not sure
7/261 respondents3%We are thinking about starting a new education initiative within BiB, which one of these activities are you most interested in?
173
Respondents
Knowledge based articles or presentations on topics such as "Introduction to different modalities: small molecule vs gene therapy."
46/173 respondents27%Mentorship Program (where we pair a new-to-the-field person with someone who has gone through a similar process)
38/173 respondents22%Themed hackathons with lectures and mentors (e.g. bootcamp to gain structured learning for either bio or coding)
37/173 respondents21%Tech <> Bio Buddy Program (we pair a tech person with a bio person with supplementary skills and interests so they can learn from each other)
28/173 respondents16%Career related articles or presentations on topics such as di erent job profiles within the field, unexpected challenges of each job function and the industry.
16/173 respondents9%None of the above
8/173 respondents5%Do you consider yourself to be working in industry or academia?
263
Respondents
Industry
197/263 respondents75%Academia
60/263 respondents23%Other
6/263 respondents2%Which of the following best describes your current employment status?
263
Respondents
Employed Full time
178/263 respondents68%PhD-student or post-doc
26/263 respondents10%Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed
18/263 respondents7%Student, full-time
14/263 respondents5%Not employed, but looking for work
12/263 respondents5%What sources do you use to keep up to date in your field?
263
Respondents
Bits in Bio
166/263 respondents63%Conferences
134/263 respondents51%Biorxiv
128/263 respondents49%Which of the following best describes your current role?
263
Respondents
Computational Biologist/Bioinformatician
90/263 respondents34%Management
73/263 respondents28%Software Engineer
69/263 respondents26%Data Scientist
44/263 respondents17%ML Engineer/Researcher
35/263 respondents13%Are you curious to learn more about biology or the biotech space, and if so, what are the questions you have?
170
Respondents
What are the big problems worth tackling in the field?
97/170 respondents57%What is the landscape of each of these problem space?
93/170 respondents55%Who can I talk to when I have questions in this field?
66/170 respondents39%What are the helpful resources I can leverage to start learning about this field?
63/170 respondents37%What are the possible roles within this field?
43/170 respondents25%What industry does your organization operate in?
263
Respondents
Biotech/Pharma
203/263 respondents77%Basic / Fundamental research
59/263 respondents22%Information Technology
57/263 respondents22%Agriculture
19/263 respondents7%Food & Nutrition
17/263 respondents6%Approximately how many people are employed by the company or organization you currently work for?
263
Respondents
2 - 19 employees
77/263 respondents29%20-99 employees
52/263 respondents20%100-499 employees
45/263 respondents17%5,000 or more employees
39/263 respondents15%500- 4,999 employees
32/263 respondents12%Just me - I am a freelancer, sole proprietor, etc.
18/263 respondents7%Which persona do you most identify with?
263
Respondents
You primarily write code within a biotech/pharma
116/263 respondents44%You primarily write code, but not in a biotech/pharma
52/263 respondents20%None of the above
43/263 respondents16%You work in a biotech/pharma, do wet lab experiments, and also do a modest amount of coding
30/263 respondents11%You work in a biotech/pharma, but do not write code (e.g. majority wet lab)
22/263 respondents8%Has your work involved protein engineering?
263
Respondents
No
126/263 respondents48%Not yet - but I'm curious to explore protein engineering in the future
85/263 respondents32%Yes
52/263 respondents20%What types of proteins do you regularly work with?
51
Respondents
Antibodies
23/51 respondents45%Enzymes
23/51 respondents45%Structural proteins
17/51 respondents33%Gene regulatory proteins
12/51 respondents24%Short peptides
12/51 respondents24%Which of the following design objectives do you regularly work on?
47
Respondents
Improve binding affinity (Kd; protein<>protein, protein<>ligand)
23/47 respondents49%Stability optimization
19/47 respondents40%Improve solubility
18/47 respondents38%Discover & Find novel activity / function
17/47 respondents36%Improve (heterologous) expression
15/47 respondents32%How many candidates do you typically assay each round?
42
Respondents
24
14/42 respondents33%96
10/42 respondents24%384
3/42 respondents7%384-1536
2/42 respondents5%1.5k-10k
2/42 respondents5%Has your work involved machine learning?
263
Respondents
Yes
169/263 respondents64%Not yet - but I'm curious to explore machine learning in the future
72/263 respondents27%No
22/263 respondents8%Which of the following machine learning models do you regularly work with?
125
Respondents
GPT-3/GPT-4
81/125 respondents65%AlphaFold/AlphaFold2
54/125 respondents43%ESM/ESMFold
30/125 respondents24%LLaMA/LLaMA 2
16/125 respondents13%ProteinMPNN
14/125 respondents11%Which of the following design objectives do you regularly work on using machine learning?
148
Respondents
Target identification/selection
67/148 respondents45%Library/in silico screening
56/148 respondents38%Hit generation/selection (e.g. generating binders)
34/148 respondents23%Predicting bioactivity
29/148 respondents20%in vitro testing
28/148 respondents19%Has your work involved lab automation?
263
Respondents
Yes
98/263 respondents37%No
94/263 respondents36%Not yet - but I'm curious to explore lab automation in the future
71/263 respondents27%Which lab equipment vendors do you regularly work with?
90
Respondents
Illumina (e.g. NovaSeq, MiSeq, NextSeq)
50/90 respondents56%Thermo Fisher (e.g. Sorvall, Heracell, Applied Bio)
46/90 respondents51%Agilent Technologies (e.g. InfinityLab, Intelliq)
39/90 respondents43%Hamilton (e.g. Microlab, Verso, NIMBUS)
39/90 respondents43%Tecan (e.g. Freedom EVO, Fluent)
32/90 respondents36%Which of the following design objectives do you regularly work on using lab automation?
92
Respondents
Data Acquisition and Analysis
56/92 respondents61%Liquid Handling and Pipetting
53/92 respondents58%High-Throughput Screening
51/92 respondents55%Sample Preparation and Extraction (e.g. dilution, mixing, extraction)
46/92 respondents50%Molecular Biology Workflows (e.g. PCR, sequencing)
34/92 respondents37%Do you code?
263
Respondents
Yes - I am comfortable writing code
190/263 respondents72%Some - I modify other people's code, but rarely start from scratch.
42/263 respondents16%No - I don't write code
31/263 respondents12%How often do you personally do data analysis for work?
232
Respondents
Daily
96/232 respondents41%Weekly
62/232 respondents27%Monthly
27/232 respondents12%Rarely
26/232 respondents11%Every 3 months
12/232 respondents5%Which of the following languages do you use for data analysis?
220
Respondents
Python
204/220 respondents93%R
103/220 respondents47%Shell (Bash/Powershell/etc)
97/220 respondents44%SQL
72/220 respondents33%C++
14/220 respondents6%How often do you write scripts to automate previously manual tasks for work?
232
Respondents
Monthly
60/232 respondents26%Weekly
60/232 respondents26%Daily
42/232 respondents18%Rarely
31/232 respondents13%Every 3 months
22/232 respondents9%Which of the following languages do you use to write scripts to automate workflows?
215
Respondents
Python
189/215 respondents88%Shell (Bash/Powershell/etc)
113/215 respondents53%R
44/215 respondents20%Nextflow
35/215 respondents16%Snakemake
14/215 respondents7%How often do you personally develop new tools and libraries for work?
232
Respondents
Rarely
58/232 respondents25%Daily
40/232 respondents17%Monthly
37/232 respondents16%Weekly
35/232 respondents15%Never
31/232 respondents13%Which of the following languages do you use to develop new tools and libraries?
191
Respondents
Python
173/191 respondents91%R
40/191 respondents21%Shell (Bash/Powershell/etc)
34/191 respondents18%JavaScript
24/191 respondents13%TypeScript
20/191 respondents10%How often do you personally program data engineering / pipelines for work?
232
Respondents
Rarely
54/232 respondents23%Never
47/232 respondents20%Daily
41/232 respondents18%Weekly
31/232 respondents13%Monthly
30/232 respondents13%Every 3 months
29/232 respondents13%Which of the following languages do you use for data engineering / pipelines?
185
Respondents
Python
173/185 respondents94%Shell (Bash/Powershell/etc)
53/185 respondents29%R
33/185 respondents18%SQL
28/185 respondents15%JavaScript
6/185 respondents3%How often do you personally do machine learning for work?
232
Respondents
Never
60/232 respondents26%Rarely
47/232 respondents20%Monthly
42/232 respondents18%Weekly
31/232 respondents13%Daily
30/232 respondents13%Which of the following languages do you use to do machine learning?
163
Respondents
Python
154/163 respondents94%R
31/163 respondents19%Shell (Bash/Powershell/etc)
13/163 respondents8%C++
6/163 respondents4%SQL
6/163 respondents4%Which of the following machine learning tools (frameworks, libraries, models, etc) do you work with?
155
Respondents
Pytorch
109/155 respondents70%Scikit-Learn
103/155 respondents66%Tensorflow
61/155 respondents39%AlphaFold
38/155 respondents25%OpenAI
38/155 respondents25%How often do you personally program web interfaces for work?
232
Respondents
Never
93/232 respondents40%Rarely
58/232 respondents25%Daily
27/232 respondents12%Weekly
20/232 respondents9%Monthly
18/232 respondents8%Every 3 months
16/232 respondents7%Which of the following languages do you use to program web interfaces?
133
Respondents
Python
81/133 respondents61%JavaScript
59/133 respondents44%HTML/CSS
40/133 respondents30%TypeScript
38/133 respondents29%R
14/133 respondents11%Which databases have you worked with extensively?
219
Respondents
PostgreSQL
101/219 respondents46%MySQL
73/219 respondents33%Not relevant to me - I don't work with databases
62/219 respondents28%SQLite
59/219 respondents27%MongoDB
33/219 respondents15%Which cloud platforms have you extensively developed with?
232
Respondents
AWS
142/232 respondents61%Google Cloud Platform
76/232 respondents33%Not relevant to me - I don't work with cloud platforms
57/232 respondents25%Microso Azure
18/232 respondents8%DigitalOcean
11/232 respondents5%Which of the following data sources do you use extensively?
232
Respondents
Not relevant to me - I don't work with such data sources
104/232 respondents45%Uniprot
76/232 respondents33%Literature
62/232 respondents27%RCSB / PDB
44/232 respondents19%KEGG
43/232 respondents19%When you are using data from another source, what formats does it come in (input data)?
232
Respondents
CSV/TSV
164/232 respondents71%FASTA
116/232 respondents50%JSON
111/232 respondents48%FASTQ
108/232 respondents47%Excel
102/232 respondents44%When you are storing data for analysis or later use which formats do you use (output data)?
232
Respondents
CSV/TSV
153/232 respondents66%JSON
91/232 respondents39%Parquet
50/232 respondents22%BAM/SAM
49/232 respondents21%Excel
49/232 respondents21%What tools and libraries do you use to visualise data?
232
Respondents
Matplotlib
137/232 respondents59%Plotly
88/232 respondents38%Ggplot
69/232 respondents30%Excel
61/232 respondents26%Google Sheets
48/232 respondents21%Which of the following lab information management systems and electronic lab notebooks do you use?
232
Respondents
Not relevant to me - I don't work with LIMS/ELN
110/232 respondents47%Benchling
84/232 respondents36%CDD
13/232 respondents6%BaseSpace
12/232 respondents5%Sapio Sciences
8/232 respondents3%How old are you?
263
Respondents
25-35
140/263 respondents53%35-45
67/263 respondents25%18-25
33/263 respondents13%45-60
21/263 respondents8%60+
2/263 respondents1%Which of the following, if any, best describes you?
263
Respondents
Man
167/263 respondents63%Woman
78/263 respondents30%Prefer not to say
18/263 respondents7%Non-binary
3/263 respondents1%What country do you live in?
263
Respondents
United States
198/263 respondents75%Canada
16/263 respondents6%Germany
8/263 respondents3%United Kingdom
8/263 respondents3%Switzerland
5/263 respondents2%Which of the following, if at all, best describes you?
263
Respondents
North American
117/263 respondents44%White
80/263 respondents30%European
56/263 respondents21%Prefer not to say
28/263 respondents11%Asian
22/263 respondents8%Which of the following best describes the highest level of formal education that you've completed?
263
Respondents
Other doctoral degree (Ph.D., Ed.D., etc.)
95/263 respondents36%Master's degree (M.A., M.S., M.Eng., MBA, etc.)
80/263 respondents30%Bachelor's degree (B.A., B.S., B.Eng., etc.)
79/263 respondents30%Secondary school (e.g. American high school, German Realschule or Gymnasium, etc.)
4/263 respondents2%Professional degree (JD, MD, etc.)
3/263 respondents1%Some college/university study without earning a degree
2/263 respondents1%How do you feel about the broader biotech market in the near future?
263
Respondents
Somewhat bullish
102/263 respondents39%Neutral
66/263 respondents25%Very bullish
50/263 respondents19%Somewhat bearish
36/263 respondents14%Very bearish
9/263 respondents3%