Data Science Welcomes Five Students for Summer Research
Written by Anne ONeill
Five students joined Data Science this summer: three from local high schools (two of the 3 as part of the CURE program (Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences)) and two as part of their undergraduate experience. Best wishes to all in their future goals.
Student: Gabriel Dos Santos: Lab: Hormoz Lab; DS mentor: Dr. Guoye Guan
Program: CURE program
“This summer I’ve been working alongside my mentor, Dr. Guoye Guan, in the Hormoz Lab on identifying the minimal two-gene regulatory circuits capable of driving anterior–posterior axis symmetry breaking in gastruloids, using agent-based biophysical modeling and parameter analysis in MATLAB. I learned how to combine gene-regulatory logic with the physics of cell–cell interactions, modeling how a symmetric aggregate of stem cells uses noise, differential adhesion, and long-range attraction to spontaneously organize a human body axis. I loved getting to contribute to real scientific research in a lab environment, something I was never able to experience growing up. I also found myself enjoying troubleshooting the biophysical models myself, connecting physics and math back to developmental biology. “
Future Plans: “I’m a rising junior at Pioneer Charter School of Science in Everett, Massachusetts, and I aspire to pursue a major in biomedical engineering throughout my undergraduate studies!”
Student: Elizabeth Govani: Lab: BayesMendel Lab (PIs: Giovanni Parmigiani and Danielle Braun); DS mentor: Maria Sol Rosito
Program: YES for CURE program, a longer subprogram of the CURE program.
“This is my 2nd summer in DS. I statistically compared published gastric cancer penetrance estimates for CDH1 carriers and examined how differences in study populations, outcomes, and methods may explain discrepancies across studies, with the goal of informing future maintenance of Fam3PRO, a software tool that uses family history and genetic information to estimate hereditary cancer risk. …also evaluated current Fam3PRO output visualizations to identify where the communication of risk information to users needed improvement.”
Future Plans: “I am attending Bowie State University in Maryland in the fall.”
Student: Leo Song: Lab: Cheng-Zhong Zhang Lab; DS mentor: Jiahui Zhang
Program: Summer Intern
“This summer I’ve been working with Jiahui on understanding cancer genome evolution, using whole-genome sequencing from clonally derived cell lines to figure out which mutations define each cell lineage and how those lineages drift apart over time. I got to build a lot of the analysis from the ground up: writing pipelines to process millions of genetic variants, then digging into the results to trace how one group of cells diverged from the rest. What I enjoyed most was how much the work sat at the intersection of biology, statistics, and computer science, and how every question I answered seemed to open two more.”
Future Plans: “I’m a rising senior at BB&N in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I’m hoping to study something related to evolutionary biology and computer/data science in college. “
Student: Owen Ong: Lab: Hormoz Lab; DS mentor: Carlos S. Morales Rivera
Program: Harvard PRISE (Program for Research in Science and Engineering)
“I am currently working on computational method development for ProBac-seq, a single-cell RNA-seq technology for bacteria. We hope to use empirical Bayesian deconvolution to recover true mRNA transcript counts from noisy probe readings, and to identify co-regulated gene networks via a variational autoencoder and independent component analysis. This would allow us to better characterise phenotypic heterogeneity in bacterial populations under various stressors e.g. antibiotic or phage exposure.”
Future plans: “I’m a rising second-year, studying Biological Natural Sciences at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge (ENGLAND). I aim to continue developing both wet- and dry-lab skills to become an effective systems biologist and pursue graduate studies in the field!”
Student: Zaid Al-Ississ: Lab: BayesMendel Lab (PIs: Giovanni Parmigiani and Danielle Braun); DS mentor: Maria Sol Rosito
Program: Harvard PRISE (Program for Research in Science and Engineering)
“This summer I worked on maintaining and developing the penetrance R package, a software tool for estimating age-specific cancer risks. I specifically focused on evaluating the functionality of the prior elicitation process, implementing key structural improvements to strengthen the package’s methodology and precision, while optimizing for user accessibility.”
Future Plans: “I’m a rising junior at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying Statistics, and I hope to continue to apply quantitative methods and principles to solve issues in decision theory, health, and sustainability.”
Programs and Labs:
