How useful is "R" for heme onc research?

[jackinabox1]

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I've been wanting to learn R to supplement my future research pursuits. Specifically, I want to focus in on heme onc research. Could anyone weigh in on whether "R" is commonly used in heme onc research? Is there a better skill to consider? Thanks!

 

[bronx43]

I've been wanting to learn R to supplement my future research pursuits. Specifically, I want to focus in on heme onc research. Could anyone weigh in on whether "R" is commonly used in heme onc research? Is there a better skill to consider? Thanks!

I learned R for research (not heme onc). It’s certainly a good skill to have, though I would say solid grasp of statistical concepts is much more important than learning a particular language. Unless you’re working with very large data sets or trying to run certain machine learning models, I’m not sure you HAVE to have R as there are other useful software that don’t have as steep of a learning curve.

if you’re mostly interested in making nice looking data visuals then R is a great tool. Hard to beat when you can use ggplot and whip up a colorful scatter plot on the fly with a few lines of code.
Python is another good option, though I think most data scientists would say the two languages are pretty equivalent in the industry.

 

[whoknows2012]

A lot of large patient cohort projects include ngs data which is supremely helpful to know R for coding purposes. Is it absolutely necessary? No. But it will definitely serve you well to learn it, if possible

 

[deleted626763]

How would one go about learning R?

 

[bronx43]

How would one go about learning R?

I used books and online. Book of R, R cookbook, and R for data science are all good choices. And of course stackoverflow.

 

[deleted626763]

I used books and online. Book of R, R cookbook, and R for data science are all good choices. And of course stackoverflow.

Thank you! I especially appreciate the suggestions for specific resources. 🙂

 

[Ttmq27]

Hem/Onc fellow here. I use SAS for all my data analysis, good enough for K-M, multivariate regression cox, etc. Our statistician basically uses everything, SAS, R, etc. Our genomic analysis group uses python a lot.