EARLY STAGE
RESEARCHERS
Background
The first lecture on data structures during my undergraduate degree stimulated an interest in programming. I chose computer science-related subjects such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in my final year. Having an undergraduate degree in bioinformatics has helped me grasp multidisciplinary research.
After finishing my undergraduate degree in India at Amity University, I moved to Ireland to pursue Genomics. I secured the Max Arthur Macauliffe Scholarship from the National University of Galway for my master's degree, awarded to 3 Indians every academic year. During the master's degree, I strengthened my statistical thinking and learned to turn ideas into realities. I opted for modules such as Data visualisation and Networks to enhance my understanding of systems biology approaches.
One of the critical reasons to join INTERCEPT-MDS Project 12 was the opportunity to work in an industrial setting. I always intended to join the ranks of industrial researchers to advance technology for a company's profit and the benefit to consumers, and possibly to society.
Besides academics, I spend my time going on hikes, swimming and meeting people from different cultures. Being a cat person, sometimes I also waste my time watching cat videos :)
Research
Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-Seq) datasets are subject to non-trivial noise and drop-outs that significantly impact the downstream analysis and reduce the power of a statistical test to infer biological connotation. My project aims to develop methods for the functional analysis of scRNA-seq data that can consider the characteristic features of scRNA-seq datasets, such as data imputations and multiple comparisons among different cell types.
Biological processes, such as clonal expansion, can also be represented as continuous dynamic changes in cell type/state (cell-trajectory). Tracking pathway activity changes over a cell trajectory can help infer transcriptional regulation. Thus I also aim to develop approaches to represent dynamic functional changes in a cell to help conclude inter/intra-cell regulation. This could also assist in the interception of diseases in progression upon perturbation.
Simultaneously, I will develop the single-cell module of the OmicsBox (BioBam Bioinformatics S.L.), thereby making single-cell tools more user-friendly and reproducible for the scientific community.