Internship in Summer
Project: “Characterizing the mutational landscape of cancer tumors among populations”.
I spent the majority of my summer 2017 working on this exciting research project under the guidance of Dr. Rob Kulathinal, an evolutionary genomicist in the Department of Biology, here at Temple University. The objective of this project was to identify de novo mutations in the tumor when compared to non-tumor tissue and to see whether these differences are associated with particular populations based on Genetic ancestry (e.g., white vs. black) or Sex (male vs. female).
The project intended to find mutational differences across all 32 TCGA Cancers using the data of the genomic differences from GDAC’s Firebrowse website. The differences in cancer rates are present across different demographics of the population due to differences in overall health (diet, exercise), amount of drug usage.
In the Kulathinal lab, they integrate business questions with evolutionary/computational genomic approaches which gave me a unique insight to understand and appreciate the confluence of science and information technology via data analytics. I explored ways by which technology along with “big data” are used for success in business in addition to studying how computational genomics can help improve overall human health. The opportunity to work collaboratively and learn from working with an active research team was very special one. I was also trained in python and Linux operating system. Genetic engineering extracts information gleaned from the genome to provide better nutrition solutions to underdeveloped parts of the global population. Working closely with Dr. Kulathinal this summer allowed me to explore these exciting approaches in greater detail.