It has been quite some time since we last offered a computer laboratory in a practical course of the Biochemistry Programme. This year, in BCHE4640 Aspect of Neuroscience Laboratory, we made a strategic move to include the training of SPSS in the context of descriptive statistics, which served as a stepping stone for our students to explore more on data analytics.

We envisage that, in addition to ‘wet lab’ techniques, Biochemistry students should also acquire those practical ‘dry lab’ skills, which are often considered as ‘transferable skills’ in the general job market. We have started small to begin with ‘descriptive statistics’ (which ought to be the ‘common sense’ of any science students, in my humble opinion). Provided we are able to observe our students to have a solid grasp of those ‘common sense’, we have a vision to further lay down the foundation of data analytics, for example, in the context of making forecast and decision based on available data (predictive analytics).

It is a new and enthusiastic direction of what Biochemistry students should do; though it is not easy, we are optimistic that it will work~