Some questions on Computational Biology!

[Raghavender Pillutla]

Hello All,

I am about to graduate from Chemical Engineering with a Master's degree. 
During my graduate research which involved some kind of modeling of 
protein adsorption, I got interested in the field of computational 
biology. Because of my interest in this field, I have decided to go for a 
master's in computer science, which I think is necessary to be good in 
this field.

Now before going any further, let me tell you that I am pretty new to 
this field, and desperately need some guidance and advice. So, I would 
like to ask all those gurus in this field as to what kind of future does 
computational biology hold? Is the field well-recognized in the academic 
world? My interest in this field is also partly  because I want to make a
contribution to the field of medicine, from a computer scientist's point of 
view. Like, for example, modelling the series of events which lead to a 
disease, and predicting it much before the physical symptoms show up.  I 
don't know whether all these is feasible or not, but I want to know what 
are the hot topics of research in computational biology related to medicine.

And finally, I also want to know the kind of job opportunities this field 
offers. Can any one answer my questions? Thank You very much in Advance,

Raghu.