Bioinformatics is the study of biological data using computers. It is a relatively new field, and as such, it is not yet accommodating to people with disabilities. This is a problem, because bioinformatics is a field that has the potential to help people with disabilities in a number of ways.

For example, bioinformatics could be used to develop new treatments for genetic disorders. It could also be used to develop new prosthetic devices and assistive technologies. However, none of this is possible if people with disabilities are not given ample input, as studies of disabilities lead by those without them tend to be just as harmful as they are helpful.

There are a number of reasons why bioinformatics is not yet accommodating to people with disabilities. One reason is that the field is still developing, and there has been little focus on accessibility so far. Another reason is that many of the tools and technologies used in bioinformatics are not yet accessible to everyone. In my lab, if you need a left-handed/ambidextrous mouse, you would have to bring your own.

While it sometimes seems like the rapid development of new technologies seems to leave behind those with disabilities, the very same technologies can be a massive benefit to those with mental and physical disabilities. Everyone in the field of bioinformatics has at least two computers at their disposal at any given time, allowing for a nearly paperless environment, decreasing clutter, helping to keep thins from getting lost, and helping dyslexics like me spell fancy words like “beta-adrenergic receptors”. I can always doodle on my tablet and I can have alarms and reminders set for myself to keep me on schedule.

As bioinformatics is a STEM field, it requires a Bachelors at the minimum, and that’s a huge deal-breaker for a lot of people. Watching friends with autism apply to sixty plus jobs without a single call back because they don’t have a degree and struggle with the rigid constraints of higher education is painful. However bioinformatics is growing so rapidly, once you graduate, and then probably graduate two more times, you can almost certainly get a job in a field where people are generally pretty liberal and accepting. It’s painfully obvious that the higher education system is designed to keep out people with mental illnesses as well as the poor, however if you can make it past that, there’s a lot of opportunity in a field that is fairly individualistic and allows for reasonable flexibility.

I definitely think that my OCD can be a big impairment to my functioning in a lab setting, but it’s also really nice sometimes when I can focus my obsessions towards the procedures, and I can use the drive to be in control of things to control my experiments as much as possible and get good data. Also if I want I can work with computers all day. Social interaction is mostly optional outside of an academic setting, and even there as long as you give your lectures and show up for your office hours nobody really cares how social you are. There are definitely professors in the department that only show up for class and leave right after.

As a bioinformatics student working mostly with AI, I find myself thinking a lot about non-human thinking systems. It makes a lot of sense in a mind/body dualism school of thought to take a brain and put it into a computer. Actual research into the field of machine intelligence has found that, while neuromorphic AI (AI designed based on models of the human brain) is the place where the best progress has been made, models of the brain are only about a tenth as capable as an equally complex biological network. Additionally the constraints of these systems don’t behave in a way consistent with that of our subjective experience as thinking systems. The one most relevant to the conversation around phenomenology is that of the input requirements for neural networks. Even “generative” neural networks like StyleGANN (https://thispersondoesnotexist.com) use an input of random numbers generated by a computer to give an output. For a thinking human this tends to go against one’s general impression of how their own thought processes work, however phenomenology points out that we are constantly receiving input both from our bodies/senses, as well as in the form of the recursive input of our own focus.

Another thought I have had is whether or not animals have a sense of mind-body dualism. This is actually something that has been studied experimentally! The experiment generates involves a control of placing the animal in front of another member of its species and watching its reaction(s) followed by placing the animal in front of a mirror and watching its reactions. Some animals see their reflections and interpret them as another animal of the same species, unable to distinguish between reflections of the self and other individuals. Most animals just generally ignore their reflections. especially adults who have seen their own reflections in water or glass. Some animals show initial confusion followed by an understanding that the animal in the mirror is the body that is attached to the stream of thought in their head. Most of these animals will remember that experience too and will no longer show confusion in front of the mirror, showing that they have some persistent sense of self. It’s all fascinating and while I would love to write more about it I have to run this in since it’s getting late.