2023 is just around the corner, and it’s time to start thinking about investment options. For Indians, there are a variety of choices, for those on a budget, mutual funds, ETFs, and index funds are all good options. Mutual funds offer a variety of investments, while ETFs and index funds offer a low-cost option.

For those with a larger budget, stocks and bonds are a great option. Stocks provide the potential for higher returns, while bonds provide a steady income.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are another great option for those looking to invest in 2023. REITs provide an opportunity to invest in real estate without the hassle of owning and managing a property.

Finally, cryptocurrency is an option for those looking for more speculative investments. Cryptocurrency has the potential for higher returns but is also more volatile than other investments.

No matter what your budget (AKA risk apatite), there are plenty of investment options for Indians in 2023. With the right research and planning, you can find the best investment that fits your needs.

bla…blaa…blaaa… No I’m not singing the songs from the Minions movie, you might have heard or read about all of these from countless sources, and I’m not running away with just the summary.

I have started investing very recently and my knowledge mostly is handed down, so you folks reading this might know better about “money” than I do. Yet I will list all the investment opportunities their pro’s and cons in an unfiltered manner; as for which ones to invest in depends on your risk appetite.

Lets look at the overview of how much each investment option can earn you (pre-tax):

When it comes to Stocks, Mutual funds and Crypto (with a swag), the options are infinite! and there are plenty of resources; I listen to “Ankoor Warikoo” (P.S. this article is not sponsored); the whole “chalo! excel excel kheltein hain…” by him makes a ton of sense to me.

In this article I will list a few options for P2P lending, FD’s and Debt funds which are mostly miss-understood and usually ignored!

P2P Lending

P2P (peer-to-peer) lending is a great way to invest in 2023. It allows investors to lend money directly to individuals or companies without the involvement of a bank or other financial institution. This makes for a much faster and easier process for both parties, as well as often a better rate of return for the investor. Additionally, the reduced overhead of P2P lending allows for more competitive rates for borrowers. P2P lending is becoming increasingly popular, and is a great option for investors looking to diversify their portfolio in 2023.

Very lucrative, yet each platform has their own way of deciding whom to lend and what percentage! I personally use two platforms to invest in P2P:

12% Club by BharatPe

The 12% Club by BharatPe is a great option for investors looking to maximize their returns, it offers a guaranteed return of 12% or more on investments, with a minimum of ₹10,000. This is a great way to hedge against market volatility and get a guaranteed return on investment.

Furthermore, this club also offers potential investors access to exclusive deals and offers that can help them grow their investments. With the 12% Club, investors can rest assured that their funds are in safe hands and that they will be able to benefit from the highest returns possible.

Neobank FI by Federal Bank

FI by Federal Bank though an online banking platform offers P2P lending option. Not only do they offer 9% returns on investing in peer-to-peer lending , but they are also a highly reputable and secure financial institution. Investing through them can be a great way to diversify your portfolio, as well as a great way to start building a nest egg for the future.

Use the referral code Q86GAQUF78 to open your Fi account & claim your reward.

Fixed Deposits

Fixed deposits (FDs) have long been a popular option for investors looking for a safe and secure way to save for the future. However, FDs have one major drawback: they cannot beat inflation. Inflation is the rate at which the general price level of goods and services rises over time, and it can erode the value of your investments.

If your FD returns do not equal or exceed the rate of inflation, your money will be losing value over time. Therefore, FDs are not the best option for investors looking to grow their money over the long term.

But wait a second, I’m not here to recite the same-old-same-old! here is one option that actually blows my mind;

INDMoney

The INDMoney platform is an excellent choice for those looking for a secure investment option with fixed deposits offering 8% or more in returns, it’s a great way to secure your future and beat inflation.

Namely INDMoney Super Saver FD offers 8% returns, while Shriram FD offers up to 8.80%; too good to be true and the icing on the top is that you can set the payout frequency from monthly to annually and everything in between.

Investing in fixed deposits through INDMoney is also a hassle-free experience, with a few simple steps required to get started. If you’re looking for a reliable investment option with an attractive rate of return in 2023, INDMoney is the perfect choice for you!

Use the following referral codes to open your INDMoney account & claim your free US stocks: BHACC66O0FAPL, ZVY66O0FTSL, CLJ66O0FAMZ, GQJ66O0FAPL

Debt Funds

Debt funds offer a range of benefits such as the potential to generate higher returns than traditional fixed income investments, and the ability to diversify your portfolio with less risk.

Additionally, debt funds may provide tax benefits such as capital gains exemptions and deductions for certain types of investments.

Wint Wealth

Wint Wealth is an online platform that allows you to easily invest in debt funds, giving you access to a wide variety of products and returns ranging from 9–11% rate of returns.

With Wint Wealth, you can invest in debt funds with confidence, knowing that your money is safe and secure. Currently they have an option to invest in Sovereign Gold Bonds as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article about investment options for 2023. I hope that it has given you an idea of the different investment options to diversify your portfolio.

What is PDB?

PDB is a primary protein structure database. It is a crystallographic database for the three-dimensional structure of large biological molecules, such as proteins.

PDB file format

In the PDB data file format for macromolecular models, each atom is designated either ATOM or HETATM (which stands for hetero atom).

ATOM is reserved for atoms in standard residues of protein, DNA or RNA.

HETATM is applied to non-standard residues of protein, DNA or RNA, as well as atoms in other kinds of groups, such as carbohydrates, substrates, ligands, solvent, and metal ions.

BioPandas

Now computational biologists can analyze the PDB(Protein Data Bank) file format in python. Working with molecular structures of biological macromolecules (from PDB and MOL2 files) in pandas DataFrames is what BioPandas is all about.

Installation

pip install biopandas

Import

from biopandas.pdb import PandasPdb

Fetch PDB Structural File

ppdb = PandasPdb().fetch_pdb(‘6YYT’)
ppdb.df[‘ATOM’].head()

Read PDB Files & Compute RMSD scores of Two PDB Structural Overlaps

pl1 = PandasPdb().read_pdb(‘Data/6YYT.pdb’)
pl2 = PandasPdb().read_pdb(‘Data/6YYT.pdb’)
r = PandasPdb.rmsd(pl1.df[‘HETATM’], pl2.df[‘HETATM’])
print(‘RMSD: %.4f Angstrom’ % r)

Output: RMSD: 0.0000 Angstrom (Since both the structures are same).

Plot Protein Features

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

ppdb.df['ATOM']['atom_name'].value_counts().plot(kind='bar', figsize=(16,4))
plt.title('Atom name distribution')
plt.ylabel('Count')
plt.xlabel('atom_name symbol')

Calculate B-Factor levels

ppdb.df['ATOM']['b_factor'].plot(kind='line')
plt.title('Distribution of B-Factors')
plt.xlabel('B-factor')
plt.ylabel('count')
plt.show()

References:

1. https://bhagesh-codebeast.github.io/Bioinformatics/
2. http://rasbt.github.io/biopandas/

More content at plainenglish.io

Working with Molecular Structures in pandas DataFrames was originally published in Python in Plain English on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of the very common things that you need to do in bioinformatics is extract information from biological databases. It can be quite tedious to access these databases manually, especially if you have a lot of repetitive work to do.

Biopython attempts to save you time and energy by making some online databases available from Python scripts.

Currently, Biopython has code to extract information from NCBI, ENTREZ, PDB, KEGG databases. The each of these database can be accessed via modules (named after the databases), the code in these modules basically makes it easy to write python programs that interact with the CGI scripts on these pages, so that you can get results in an easy to deal with format. In some cases, the results can be tightly integrated with the Biopython parsers to make it even easier to extract information.

Here I present to you a project which will guide you’ll on how to go about writing Biopython scripts to access data from various databases.

Access Bioinformatics Databases with Biopython

By the end of this project, you will learn to access, parse, and visualize data from various bioinformatics sequence and structural online databases such as ENTREZ, PDB, KEGG and NCBI using Biopython.

Learn step-by-step

In a video that plays in a split-screen with your work area, your instructor will walk you through these steps:

1. Sequence alignment using NCBI-BLAST
2. Fetch PUBMED & Nucleotide sequence using ENTREZ
3. Fetch proteins from PDB
4. PROSITE & SCANPROSITE from EXPASY
5. Access KEGG database

You will also interact with various bioinformatics file formats such as FASTA, PDB, GENBANK and XML along with various parsers to read and modify these files using Biopython.

Happy Learning!

The stages that follow the design or identification of a new drug are both costly and time-consuming. The entire process of drug development can take from 12 to 15 years and cost billions of dollars, but in-silico molecular docking studies have been seen to both speed up the discovery rate and reduce (although not eliminate!) the need for expensive lab work.

Hence molecular docking studies are very crucial in speeding up drug discovery and screening processes in times such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to educate the mass about docking procedure I have created a simple course!

SARS-CoV-2 Protein Modeling and Drug Docking

By the end of this project, you will construct a 3D structure of a SARS-CoV-2 protein sequence using homology modeling and perform molecular docking of drugs against this protein molecule and infer protein-drug interaction which is essential in drug screening and discovery phase.

You don’t need to install or download anything, all you need is just your browser!

This project will also introduce you to various structural databases such as PDB and online as well as locally installable protein visualization and analysis tools such as SWISS-MODEL, PyMOL, AutoDock Vina etc. essential for carrying out research in the field of bioinformatics.

Setting up protein-drug docking environment on windows subsystem for Linux (WSL 2).

Protein-docking is a molecular modeling problem which aims to predict, with computer science algorithms and techniques, the mutual orientation and position of two molecules forming a complex. One of the molecules is a protein, the other could be another protein, a nucleic acid chain or a smaller molecule.

virtual screening is used to identify small molecules that are most likely to bind to a target protein. There is various software available for virtual screening including GOLD and GLIDE. Autodock Vina which is a freely accessible software and provides good results can also be used for screening various ligands.

AutoDock Vina is one of the most popular software in Bioinformatics, known for the molecular docking simulations. In this small tutorial, we will learn how to install AutoDock Vina on Ubuntu. Its installation on Ubuntu may be a tedious process, especially for the beginners due to the unfamiliarity of the Linux commands. It is expected to work on any version of Ubuntu/ WSL 2 but make sure whether your system supports the 32- bit or 64- bit version. If you face any problem, then feel free to ask.You need a good Internet connection as you will have to download different files. We need to download the following software to install AutoDock Vina:

1. MGL Tools (AutoDock Tools are important as they provide the GUI)
2. AutoDock Vina
3. Python
4. AutoDock4
5. Autogrid

Here’s a tutorial to install WSL 2 GUI for reference

Getting started

It is good practice to update and upgrade your Ubuntu system first. Log into your Ubuntu system and open the terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T altogether. and type the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Downloading the files

Now we are going to download the above-mentioned files one by one. You can download them either directly by visiting the websites or you can download using the command line as follows. It basically downloads in the ‘Downloads’ folder, so we will enter into this directory and download the files using the command line.

$ cd Downloads/

$ wget http://mgltools.scripps.edu/downloads/tars/releases/REL1.5.6/mgltools_x86_64Linux2_1.5.6.tar.gz

$ wget http://vina.scripps.edu/download/autodock_vina_1_1_2_linux_x86.tgz

It is good to install python PIL because most of the times it prompts an error for imaging C module during the installation.

$ wget http://effbot.org/downloads/Imaging-1.1.7.tar.gz

In my case, this issue was not resolved even after installing the imaging C module, then I installed the following library and it resolved my case. If you also get the same error even after installing python imaging library, then try the following:

$ sudo apt-get install libjpeg62:i386

Although AutoDock Vina can run without installing AutoDock4 and Autogrid, you will need them if you run the AutoDock4 analysis from AutoDock Vina itself. Therefore, it is better to install them. In order to download them, you will have to type the following commands:

$ sudo wget http://autodock.scripps.edu/downloads/autodock-registration/tars/dist426/autodocksuite-4.2.6-x86_64Linux2.tar

Installation

Now that we have the tar files in the Downloads folder, we will extract and install them one by one. Let’s install AutoDock suite first, then later the MGLtools, and AutoDock Vina. To install them, open the terminal and go to the Downloads folder again.

$ cd Downloads

$ tar xvf autodocksuite-4.2.6-x86_64Linux2.tar

This will create a new directory called “x86_64Linux2” in the Downloads directory, in which we could see two executable files: “autodock4” and “autogrid”. We will move them to another directory where we keep the binaries.

$ cd x86_64Linux2

$ sudo mv autodock4 /usr/local/bin

$ sudo mv autogrid4 /usr/local/bin

Now we will come back to our Downloads directory to install the rest of the files. Let’s install mgltools.

$ cd Downloads

$ tar xvzf mgltools_x86_64Linux2_1.5.6.tar.gz

This will extract files of mgl tools and create a folder named “mgltools_x86_64Linux2_1.5.6”. Now to install it, we will go to the mgl tools directory.

$ cd mgltools_x86_64Linux2_1.5.6

$ ./install.sh

During installation, a dialog box will prompt on your screen, it's the license agreement, so just click “Ok”. If everything goes well, then the terminal will show “MGLTools installation complete”. It will also ask to create aliases in order to run them because it’s a tedious task to write the full path every time we run them. So it is convenient to create aliases which I will tell you a little later after we finish the installation of AutoDock Vina.

We have installed mgltools on the system, now we will go for AutoDock Vina. To do that, let’s go back to our Downloads folder, where we downloaded the tar files.

$ cd Downloads/

$ tar xvzf autodock_vina_1_1_2_linux_x86.tgz

After extracting the tar file of AutoDock Vina, you will see a folder in your Downloads directory named “autodock_vina_1_1_2_linux_x86”, which consists of a bin folder where you could see two setup files for vina: “vina” & “vina_split”.
This ends the installation section of our tutorial. Now we have successfully installed AutoDock Vina on Ubuntu. In the following section, I will tell you how to create aliases for the paths.

Creating aliases

If you would see the README file in the bin folder of mgl tools, it shows the paths for running the autodock tools and python molecular viewer. Using these paths, we will create aliases and to use them permanently we will add them in the bashrc file.
Open the terminal and type the following commands:

$ gedit ~/.bashrc

It will open the bashrc file, go at the end of this file and type the following:

alias adt='sudo /home/username/Downloads/mgltools_x86_64Linux2_1.5.6/bin/adt'

alias pmv='sudo /home/username/Downloads/mgltools_x86_64Linux2_1.5.6/bin/pmv'

Save the file, go back to the terminal and enter the following command:

$ source ~/.bashrc

Now, whenever you will type ‘adt’ or ‘pmv’, it will open the autodock vina or pymol viewer respectively.

We are all done! You can perform docking on your Ubuntu system using AutoDock Vina whenever you want.

UPDATE:

For Ubuntu version 16.04 and above, autodock vina can be installed from the repository:

$ sudo apt-get install autodock-vina

References :

1. AutoDock Vina
2. PyMOL

With so many factors involved in making a career move, it’s hard to know where to start or know what decision is the right one (Also credits to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to have added the “extra” right before the word “confusion”).

I’m thinking about my next job.

Where do you think I should work next?

Which companies do you think are interesting?

I think it’s time for me to consider the next phase in my career.

I’ve heard the above statements a lot over the years. Even if you’re at the very beginning of your next-move exploration, you already have a list of goals you want to achieve in your head. It might look something like:

• I want to get paid more
• I want to work on a smaller team where I have a larger impact
• I want to improve my core skills
• I want to work at a company headquartered in the city I live in

While searching for a new role It becomes laborious to continually check each website/Portal to see what new roles have been posted since there are so many different websites, which list different jobs and at different times.

Individuals end up relying on advertisements and do not reach the 50th or even the 10th page of Job search portals hence missing out on an opportunity which could have been in line with their expectations.

I think I have an elegant solution which could answer these queries!

A more of a “Practical approach” to be precise.

Research job opportunities with Selenium and Python -Guided Project

Research job opportunities with Selenium and Python

In this hands-on guided project, we will learn to tackle these issues by scraping 50+ pages (>1000 job postings) from Naukri.com and visualize this large dataset in one space and gain insights into the current job market.

By the end of this project, you will create a simple pipeline to automate the process of Job search using Python and Selenium.

Find the right set of specific tools & skills you need to learn to fill in the gaps of knowledge to have higher chances of getting hired and identify the current Job openings and the roles for the subject area of your choice using various visualization techniques from the generated data.

This guided project will serve as a tool to identify new job opportunities in a wide variety of subject areas and will serve as a guide for web scraping to generate Big Data using python and selenium for Data Analysts and Data Scientists.

Hope this enables you to find your dream job.

Thank you.

I present to you a super-easy guide for setting up and running RStudio Server for Ubuntu 20 on Windows 10. This is useful if you want to run R for Linux (e.g., due to its faster computation and better parallelization or simply to do cross-platform development) while on a Windows machine.

At Build 2020 Microsoft announced support for GPU compute on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2. I mean How cool is that?

This article explains how to set up RStudio Server on Windows platform.

Prerequisite

Using the enhanced WSL (version 2) for setting up RStudio Server is recommended, which requires Windows 10 (Version 2004; Build 19041 or higher).

1. You can check your Windows version by pressing the Windows logo key + R, type winver, and hit enter.
2. In case your system is lower than the suggested version, please update to the latest Windows version.
3. Lucky for you’ll I have a video linked below which explains installation of WSL2 in 5 minutes.

Installing Your Favourite Linux Distribution

RStudio Server Setup

Now that you have successfully installed a Linux distribution on your system via WSL, you can setup and run RStudio Server by following the procedures below:

• Press Windows logo key to open start menu, then type wsl to launch your installed Linux distro.
• Make sure your Linux packages are up-to-date using the following command (we will assume that you have installed a Ubuntu distribution): sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade -y Note: Provide the password of your user account that you created for the Linux system, not the Windows password to log in for your PC.
• Add the following apt credential to your repository list for Getting the Latest R (v4.0.1 as of this writing):sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys E298A3A825C0D65DFD57CBB651716619E084DAB9 sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://cloud.r project.org/bin/Linux/ubuntu focal-cran40/'
• Install R with some essential dependencies for the RStudio Server and devtools: sudo apt install -y r-base r-base-core r-recommended r-base-dev gdebi-core build-essential libcurl4-gnutls-dev libxml2-dev libssl-dev
• Install latest stable release of RStudio Server for Ubuntu 18 or newer:wget https://rstudio.org/download/latest/stable/server/bionic/rstudio-server-latest-amd64.deb sudo gdebi rstudio-server-latest-amd64.deb

Note : You may receive a warning message like “Couldn’t find an alternative telinit implementation to spawn.” This is a known issue and can be safely ignored.

Launching Rstudio Server in Browser

1. Launch RStudio Server: sudo rstudio-server start
2. Access your server at http://localhost:8787

Note 1: If there was no error message, you can assume that your RStudio Server has been successfully loaded.

Note 2: If you terminate and restart WSL, you will need to run sudo rstudio-server start again to get RStudio Server up and running.

Note 3: The user name and password are the same as your Linux system’s.

Removing RStudio Server

The following steps explain how to uninstall RStudio Server from WSL:

• To stop RStudio Server, type the following command in the WSL terminal:sudo rstudio-server stop
• Remove your Server:sudo apt-get remove rstudio-server -y

Check-out my YouTube channel for more amazing contents like this.

CodeBeast

What is sci-fi A.K.A. science fiction ?

Science fiction, often called “sci-fi,” is a genre of fiction literature whose content is imaginative, but based in science. It relies heavily on scientific facts, theories, and principles as support for its settings, characters, themes, and plot-lines, which is what makes it different from fantasy.

One cannot distinguish between reality and sci-fi in this dawn of A.I. technology.

So, while the storylines and elements of science fiction stories are imaginary, they are usually possible according to science — or at least plausible.

So what’s the big deal about sci-fi ?

Other than building a smart program to search entire search-engine and stack-overflow to debug it’s own errors you ask?

Current Biomedical and Engineering breakthroughs are all once were science fiction, Sci-Fi is no more confined to just the entertainment industry it has influenced and drove innovations to the extent that it almost seems unrealistic, here are some of my personal favourites:

1. Bionic limbs

Imagine getting your hand chopped off by your own father and falling to the bottom of a floating building to then have your long-lost sister come and pick you up. It’s unlikely in reality, but not in the Star Wars movies. After losing his hand, Luke Skywalker receives a bionic version that has all the functions of a normal hand. This scenario is now more feasible than the previous one (Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back).

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, have been developing a way for amputees to control each of their prosthetic fingers using an ultrasonic sensor. In the movie, Skywalker’s prosthesis uses electromyogram sensors attached to his muscles. The sensors can be switched into different modes and are controlled by the flexing or contracting of his muscles. The prosthesis created by the Georgia Tech researchers, however, uses machine learning and ultrasound signals to detect fine finger-by-finger movement.

Why We Invested In Totient aka How AI Can Help Us Produce Drugs Against Cancer And Covid | DataDrivenInvestor

2. Artificial Intelligence

The “Blade Runner” story heavily revolves around the idea of synthetic humans, which require artificial intelligence (AI). Some people might be worried about the potential fallout of giving computers intelligence, which has had disastrous consequences in many science-fiction works.

But AI has some very useful applications in reality. For instance, astronomers have trained machines to find exoplanets using computer-based learning techniques. While sifting through copious amounts of data collected by missions such as NASA’s Kepler and TESS missions, AI can identify the telltale signs of an exoplanet lurking in the data.

3. Driverless cars

In the 1990 film, set in 2084, Total Recall’s main protagonist Douglas Quaid (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) finds himself in the middle of a sci-fi showdown on Mars. In one scene Quaid is on the run from the bad guys and jumps into a driverless car. In the front is “Johnny Cab,” which is the car’s on-board computer system. All Johnny needs is an address to take the car to its intended destination.

Although the driverless car wasn’t seen in action before the protagonist yells profanities and takes over the driving, the idea of having a car that takes you to your destination using its onboard satellite navigation has become increasingly popular. The company at the forefront of driverless cars is Waymo, as they want to eradicate the human error and inattention that results in dangerous and fatal accidents.

In 2017, NASA stated its intentions to help in the production of driverless cars, as they would improve the technologies of robotic vehicles on extraterrestrial surfaces such as the Moon or Mars.

Reasons why it’s important for everyone to watch Sci-Fi

For the same reasons that basically all literature is important to society: it lays the foundation for growth. Good books will stimulate capable minds, which in turn will lead progress, be it scientific, technological, social, political or economical.

Science fiction shows us all (simulated) models of our possible futures, and thus, allows us — as humanimals, in society — to try and influence the direction that we all go, in the future. By acting now!

sci-fi can also deal with contemporary social anxieties, and show some possible solutions (and — the dangers of avoiding the solutions).

The formula (or algorithm) for any story, is Story = Character(s) + Problem(s) + Attempted Solution (or Extrication).

So, by seeing potential solutions to problems, (as readers) we, as a society, can debate it all intelligently, and can figure out, if we should implement them. In some cases — it (sci fi/spec fi) actually not just tries to “predict”or`prophesy’ the future, it even gives real-life, real-world scientists ideas and inspiration for technological solutions to problems.

Some characters in sci fi are: amazing! What’s not to like about amazing characters?

Sci-fi when, it’s utopian can give you hope for the future! ie “Cheer up, Charlie!” (i.e. It’s mostly a depressing world, if you’re paying attention. See the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, ie “So It Goes… (to become a glorious mess!)”.

Sci-fi gives us all a nice little break (or, brief mental & emotional holiday?) from the labyrinth of mess that is: being Alive, today. ie It’s fun to escape into the future. See the future is always better than the past, so you’d be better off in the future, than now, in the present. So if you can’t actually time-travel and get there, you can at least watch or read about it. Fun escapism into the future!

It can get you into (excited about) Science, which is awesome; Literature and the Arts are too, but so what? Science is still awesome.

Thank you for your time & patience.

Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel

Sci-Fi Impacting Research & Business -2020 was originally published in DataDrivenInvestor on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The coronavirus pandemic has increased interest in online education and brought MOOCs back into the spotlight. As the outbreak continues to evolve, we need to update ourselves with the resources and skills to best reflect the changing context in order to have a competitive edge over our peers.

Online courses are a great way to boost your employment prospects: they add a little extra something to your CV and are a great talking point in interviews, as well as being a great way to spend your free time.

With so many established higher education institutions now offering online courses, it can be a challenge deciding which one you should go for.

Stay informed and updated with skill sets and tools in the current market.

Here we present to you the courses which we found to be the most informative and innovative. This is by no means an exhaustive list — it just gives you a glimpse of the curated courses.

Best courses to stay updated

1. COVID-19 — A clinical update

By Professor Frederick S. Southwick, MD, University of Florida

COVID-19 - A clinical update

Many want to know how does this disease present, what are the symptoms associated with COVID-19? How dangerous is COVID-19? Who is at risk of dying? All these questions and much more are answered in this course.

As an expert in infectious diseases, editor of the Journal of Infectious Diseases and author of the textbook Infectious Diseases: A clinical short course, McGraw-Hill April 2020, Professor Frederick S. Southwick, MD have been concerned about the misinformation being shared about the COVID-19 epidemic. How did this disease develop? Where did it come from? How does it cause diseases? The world has been startled and frightened by the rapid spread of this virus throughout the world.

This course will be periodically updated recognizing the rapid progression of the pandemic.

2. COVID-19 Contact Tracing

By Emily Gurley, Associate Scientist, Johns Hopkins University

COVID-19 Contact Tracing

The COVID-19 crisis has created an unprecedented need for contact tracing across the country, requiring thousands of people to learn key skills quickly. The job qualifications for contact tracing positions differ throughout the country and the world, with some new positions open to individuals with a high school diploma or equivalent.

In this introductory course, students will learn about the science of SARS-CoV-2 , including the infectious period, the clinical presentation of COVID-19, and the evidence for how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted from person-to-person and why contact tracing can be such an effective public health intervention. Students will learn about how contact tracing is done, including how to build rapport with cases, identify their contacts, and support both cases and their contacts to stop transmission in their communities.

The course will also cover several important ethical considerations around contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine. Finally, the course will identify some of the most common barriers to contact tracing efforts — along with strategies to overcome them.

3. COVID-19: What You Need to Know

By Rishi Desai, Chief Medical Officer, Osmosis

COVID-19: What You Need to Know (CME Eligible)

COVID-19 is a global pandemic that has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of infections and thousands of deaths, with many more anticipated.

This course is a go-to resource that will be regularly updated with all of the current information put forth by the CDC, WHO, and other leading agencies and covers the basics, personal protective equipment, diagnostics, and other material. As a healthcare professional, you can earn CME credit and help to #RaiseTheLine by becoming prepared to treat COVID-19.

Best projects to enrich your C.V.

1. COVID19 Data Analysis Using Python

By Ahmad Varasteh, Data Mining and Machine Learning Instructor

COVID19 Data Analysis Using Python

In this project, you will learn how to preprocess and merge datasets to calculate needed measures and prepare them for an Analysis. In this project, we are going to work with the COVID19 dataset, published by John Hopkins University, which consists of the data related to the cumulative number of confirmed cases, per day, in each Country.

Also, we have another dataset consist of various life factors, scored by the people living in each country around the globe. We are going to merge these two datasets to see if there is any relationship between the spread of the virus in a country and how happy people are, living in that country.

2. 3D SARS-CoV-19 Protein Visualization With Biopython

By Bhagesh Hunakunti, Project Instructor, Coursera

3D SARS-CoV-19 Protein Visualization With Biopython

This hands-on project will give you a glimpse of tasks a Bioinformatician performs on a daily basis, along with the up-to-date concepts and database use cases in the field of Medical Research and Human genetics.

In this project you will create an interactive three-dimensional (3D) representation of SARS-CoV-19 (Coronavirus) protein structures & publication-quality pictures of the same, understand properties of SARS-CoV-19 genome, handle biological sequence data stored in FASTA & PDB (Protein Data Bank) and XML format, and get insights from this data using Biopython.

In this project, we will also cover basics about important databases used by biologists and biotechnologists, along with the type of sequence data we can access and visualize from these databases using Biopython & Jupyter notebook.

3. Detecting COVID-19 with Chest X-Ray using PyTorch

By Amit Yadav, Machine Learning Instructor

Detecting COVID-19 with Chest X-Ray using PyTorch

In this guided project, you will use a ResNet-18 model and train it on a COVID-19 Radiography dataset. This dataset has nearly 3000 Chest X-Ray scans which are categorized in three classes — Normal, Viral Pneumonia and COVID-19. Our objective in this project is to create an image classification model that can predict Chest X-Ray scans that belong to one of the three classes with a reasonably high accuracy.

Please note that this dataset, and the model that we train in the project, can not be used to diagnose COVID-19 or Viral Pneumonia. We are only using this data for educational purpose.

Before you attempt this project, you should be familiar with programming in Python. You should also have a theoretical understanding of Convolutional Neural Networks, and optimization techniques such as gradient descent. This is a hands on, practical project that focuses primarily on implementation, and not on the theory behind Convolutional Neural Networks.

Thanks for reading. I hope you obtained inspiration and resources to feed your knowledge. Happy learning!

Resources to Enhance Your Knowledge About COVID-19 was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why do we need to Visualize Proteins ?

In the fields of Bioinformatics, Health and Medical Technology & Biotechnology, there is now a widespread need for visualization tools to present the 3D structure of proteins.

There are only a few examples of protein function. A remarkable fact is that all tasks they can perform are based on a common principle, the twenty amino acids that can form a protein. That is the reason why studying proteins, their composition, structure, dynamics and function, is so important.

We must understand how these molecules fold, how they assemble into complexes, how they function if we wish to answer questions such as why we have cancer, why we grow old, why we get sick, how can we find cures for many diseases, why life as we know it has evolved in this way and on this planet and not anywhere else, at least for the moment. All proteins functions are dependent on their structure, which, in turn, depends on physical and chemical parameters.

This is another important fact on studying these molecules; classical biological, physical, chemical, mathematical and informatics sciences have been working together in a new area known as bioinformatics to allow a new level of knowledge about life organization. To understand structural biology, visualization of complex macromolecular structure (like proteins) is essential and macromolecular structure visualization is also now one of the primary steps in the process of drug design and discovery and docking studies. These studies are done virtually thus reducing animal trials and manpower.

3D SARS-CoV-19 Protein Visualization With Biopython

Learn step-by-step

In a video that plays in a split-screen with your work area, your instructor will walk you through these steps:

1. Introduction to Biopython
2. Understand FASTA file format
3. Sequence manipulation using Biopython
4. Transcription & Translation studies
5. Perform Basic Local Alignment using NCBI-BLAST
6. Reading PDB file
7. Visualizing SARS-CoV-19 Protein structures

In this project you will create an interactive three-dimensional (3D) representation of SARS-CoV-19 (Coronavirus) protein structures & publication-quality pictures of the same, understand properties of SARS-CoV-19 genome, handle biological sequence data stored in FASTA & PDB (Protein Data Bank) and XML format, and get insights from this data using Biopython.

This hands-on project will also give you a glimpse of tasks a Bioinformatician performs on a daily basis, along with the up-to-date concepts and database use cases in the field of Medical Research and Human genetics.

In this project, we will also cover basics about important databases used by biologists and biotechnologists, along with the type of sequence data we can access and visualize from these databases using Biopython & Jupyter notebook.

Further Reading:

1. Project page: 3D SARS-CoV-19 Protein Visualization With Biopython
2. Biopython reference: Biopython cookbook

3D Coronavirus Protein Visualization With Python was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.