Leigh Arino de la Rubia

As someone who has spent a significant amount of time ‘data wrangling’ outside the field of data science, I found this recent New York Times article both highly interesting and nothing new - I’ve seen the same issue discussed in a variety of fields with similar automation solutions presented each time. Granted, there are fields where this janitorial drudgery is absolutely necessary, such as molecular biology. As a scientist working on researching mRNA expression you certainly have to keep RNase-free conditions, meaning you have to ‘clean up’ your bench in a more detailed way than you’d ever imagine before you can run your first PCR cycle. This includes specific protocols for washing your dishes several times with special water before you even start because if you don’t, you’re not likely to get any bands in your electrophoresis gel and you’ll lose several days (or weeks!) of work.

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