Frequently asked questions

Our expertise

• Why is Bioinformatics as a Service a better option than hiring a bioinformatician?

  • There are several benefits, the main ones being:

    1. You only spend money when you actually need a bioinformatician, as opposed to paying for recruitment, salary, holidays, overhead, office space, computational infrastructure and software licenses every day, to name but a few expenses.
    2. A service can be easily adapted to your changing needs, from periods of high-intensity analysis to the slower periods in between.
    3. You can access the combined experience and expertise of a full bioinformatics team.
    4. You do not have to deal with the daily project management of bioinformatics work, which requires a lot of time and expertise in bioinformatics. This is also a reason to (re)consider whether you should really be hiring a junior bioinformatician.
    5. Hired personnel will sometimes leave for other opportunities; contracting an external team, however, always ensures a seamless service.
• Do you have experience of working with researchers in my specific field?

  • It is likely that we do. Our scientists come from a range of backgrounds, and our customers throughout the years have spanned almost every corner of academic and industrial life sciences applications. While every project is unique, we have probably dealt with data sets, analyses, and research questions that are similar to yours. Read more about our references here.

• I did not see any mention of the type of analysis I need. Does it mean that you do not provide it?

  • Our flexible service model enables us to assist you with nearly any bioinformatics-related query. As far as our lists of analyses go, there are so many different possibilities that it would be impossible to list everything we can do. The easiest way to find out is to ask us directly!

• How can I be sure that the results provided will be up to my standards?

  • We always start with thorough data quality control, so that we can give you an early warning if we suspect that there might be something amiss with your experiments or data. The analyses themselves are conducted with top-of-the-range methods, and you can even request that we use a specific method if you want. Our background in academic life science research guarantees that we understand what it takes to conduct top-quality research.

Benefits of bioinformatics as a service

• Why is a service generally a better option than hiring a bioinformatician?

  • You might think that hiring is a self-evident answer, and it might be — however, there are few points you should consider: 1) With us you only pay when you need a bioinformatician, rather than paying for recruitment, salary, holidays, overhead, office space, computational infrastructure and software licences every day, to name but a few expenses. 2) A service can be easily adapted to your changing needs from high-intensity analysis to slower periods in between. 3) You can easily acquire the experience of a full bioinformatics team with multiple complementary skills through us. 4) You won't have to deal with bioinformatics project management or expert supervision in the case where you are hiring a novice. 5) Hired personnel do sometimes leave for other opportunities; we believe that your acquired know-how is actually safer with us than in the head of one employee.

• If you analyze the data, will I learn anything in the process?

  • Yes, we are happy to help you not only to understand what we do, but also to analyze the data on your own if you are interested in learning a specific analysis yourself. This happens through personalized training via teleconferences and by providing analysis scripts to use on your future data sets.

Starting the project

• How can I get a bioinformatics plan, and how much does it cost?

  • It is very simple: just invest one hour of your time to meet with us, and we will provide you with a free quotation that includes a tailored bioinformatics plan for your project. Once you have this plan, it is your decision how to best utilize it, and to make your own selection of partner for your project. Read more about it here.

• Do I have to be able to define the analysis in detail?

  • You do not have to define the contracted bioinformatics work in detail. We just have to understand how the data was generated, and what are your research questions. Then, we plan the workflow accordingly.

• Can you help me in writing a grant application?

  • Yes, we can provide a fully tailored bioinformatics plan for your grant application along with a schedule and budget. Additionally, we can also perform preliminary analyses on your existing data or public data to support the application.

• Do I have to be able to specify all the required work in detail beforehand?

  • No, we do not require any bioinformatics expertise from you. We will discuss your needs and then plan the implementation accordingly.

• How do I deliver the data to you?

  • There are three options for getting your data to us: you can share the data files using any preferred file sharing service, upload the files directly to our server via an SFTP connection, or just send them on an external hard drive to our office (Mr Klaus Breitholtz, Genevia Technologies Oy, Hämeenkatu 14 C 33, 33100 Tampere, Finland). As a general precaution, always make sure you have local copies of the files as a backup before sending your data to anyone!

• How many months of service will I need?

  • For a typical customer, we initially provide three months of our Research, Multiomics or Software service, with an option to extend the service on a monthly basis. The Enterprise plan is provided for 12 months with a yearly extension option.

• What if my data has quality issues?

  • We perform thorough computational quality control before moving on to downstream analyses. If there are any quality concerns, we will decide together with you on how to deal with them. In the case where the best option is to re-run the experiments, we can put the project on hold.

• Can I change the scope or the contents of the project after you have begun the analysis?

  • Absolutely! We will keep you up to date on the progress and will discuss intermediary results with you to agree on the next batch of deliverables and their schedule. We are happy to adapt to any changing requirements – your dedicated project manager is always there to discuss and implement your plans.

About the project

• Can I change the project contents after you have begun the analysis?

  • To quite a great degree, yes. During the project we keep you up to date on the progress, and might wish to discuss data quality or intermediary results with you, so that we can agree on the final deliverables. We are happy to adapt to what we see in the data and to your changing requirements as long as they are in line with the resources that were allocated to the project in the original quote. You will have a dedicated project manager to be in contact throughout the project for any such inquiries.

• How much does all this cost?

  • The cost will depend on how much time the project requires from our side. Over the years, we have put considerable effort into setting up our computational pipelines and processes for quality control, data processing, visualization and reporting. This enables a faster analysis, even though each project will be unique and customized to some extent. These software, computing and project management resources are all worked into the price and are not invoiced separately (unless otherwise explicitly agreed). Before starting a project, we will provide you with a project plan and an estimate of the required time and costs. During the project we will keep you updated on how much time we have used up to that point, and how much we expect the next project step to take. Together, we can prioritize the tasks before and during the project so as to maximize the cost-efficiency of the service. One thing you can be sure of is that you will never get an unexpected invoice from us.

• How long does it take to complete my project?

  • After accepting our quotation, we have a lead time of a couple weeks, after which we can work full-time on your project. During the project you might want time to process the intermediary results that we present to you and discuss them with your team and collaborators before agreeing on the next steps with us, which might add to the length of the project. However, it does not add to the cost of the project as long as we are not actively working on it. In most cases, the turnaround time from signing a quote for a service to receiving the final project deliverables falls within two weeks to two months.

After the project

• What exactly do I get at the end of the project?

  • The short answer is that we can provide almost any deliverable that you may need. For a data analysis project, the default deliverable is a detailed project report with descriptions of our workflow and methods, results in the form of tables and figures, and our main conclusions. We can also customize figures and write text directly for a manuscript if you wish. In a software project, the deliverable is naturally the software along with all the relevant documentation.

• What happens after we conclude a project — what if I am left with a report that I do not understand?

  • Before we compose the final report, we present all our findings to you in order to make sure that you have understood everything we have done, what the results mean, and to ensure that you have received everything you need in the context of the project.

• If you do all the data analysis, will I have an opportunity to learn anything in the process?

  • Yes, we are happy to help you not only to understand what we do but also to analyze the data on your own if you are interested in learning a specific analysis yourself. This happens through personalized training via teleconferences and by providing analysis scripts to use on your future data sets.

• Will I maintain ownership of all the intellectual output from my project?

  • Your IP stays where it belongs — with you. We withhold no rights to data or results and do not reveal them to any third party.

• Do you require authorship in resulting publications?

  • No, we do not. Our customers sometimes ask us to co-author, and we have been happy to do so in the past, but authorship is never required. It is, however, often considered good practice to mention us, for example, in the ‘Methods’ section of a paper. You can take a look to our own publications here.