Can Agents Work?

Jobs / Data and analytics / 15-2099.01

Bioinformatics Technicians

Apply principles and methods of bioinformatics to assist scientists in areas such as pharmaceuticals, medical technology, biotechnology, computational biology, proteomics, computer information science, biology and medical informatics. Apply bioinformatics tools to visualize, analyze, manipulate or interpret molecular data. May build and maintain databases for processing and analyzing genomic or other biological information.

US jobs
3,720 (SOC 15-2099 group, "Mathematical Science Occupations, All Other")
Median wage
$81,490 a year
Job family
Data and analytics

Can agents do the work of bioinformatics technicians?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Data and analytics:

  • Task levelPartialOne direct benchmark, near its ceiling. On Spider 2.0-Snow, which asks for multi-step SQL against large business databases, the top agent reaches 96.7% execution accuracy, but the entry names no model. Adjacent spreadsheet tasks agree (83.1% on SpreadsheetBench). No benchmark in our collection tests open-ended analysis, where the right question is itself unclear.
  • Project levelPartialMixed, adjacent evidence. On MLE-bench, 75 offline Kaggle competitions, the best agent wins a medal in 64.4% of competitions. The Remote Labor Index includes data analysis projects; across all its projects, the best agent completed 15.8% to a standard a client would accept.

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in data and analytics, not always this occupation's tasks.

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Conduct quality analyses of data inputs and resulting analyses or predictions.
  • Confer with researchers, clinicians, or information technology staff to determine data needs and programming requirements and to provide assistance with database-related research activities.
  • Analyze or manipulate bioinformatics data using software packages, statistical applications, or data mining techniques.
  • Document all database changes, modifications, or problems.
  • Monitor database performance and perform any necessary maintenance, upgrades, or repairs.
  • Participate in the preparation of reports or scientific publications.
  • Maintain awareness of new and emerging computational methods and technologies.
  • Test new or updated software or tools and provide feedback to developers.
  • Confer with database users about project timelines and changes.
  • Create data management or error-checking procedures and user manuals.
  • Write computer programs or scripts to be used in querying databases.
  • Develop or maintain applications that process biologically based data into searchable databases for purposes of analysis, calculation, or presentation.
Other job titles for this occupation (11)

Biocurator · Bioinformatics Analyst · Bioinformatics Data Analyst · Bioinformatics Specialist · Biotechnician · Research Scientist · Research Specialist · Scientific Informatics Analyst · Bioinformatics Research Technician · Biometrics Technician (Biometrics Tech) · Field Data Technician (Field Data Tech)