Biosciences Area

What a Genome-Wide Screening Can Reveal about Cancer Survival

Berkeley Lab researchers in the Biological Systems and Engineering Division have developed a 12-gene score tied to the odds of relapse-free breast cancer survival. The scoring system is based on an analysis of large genomic datasets and patient data, and it could eventually be developed for clinical use.

Antoine Snijders, research scientist, led the team that included Xuan Mao, Matthew Lee, Jeffrey Zhu and Carissa Zhu, all students from Campolindo High School in Moraga, California, who worked as interns at Berkeley Lab in 2016. “Berkeley Lab is committed to training the next generation of future cancer research scientists,” said Snijders. Under the supervision of Snijders, they led the programming effort and computational analysis that helped identify the relevant genes and that formed the basis of the scoring system. Snijders said, “It is exciting to see how these students contributed their computational skills to breast cancer research.” Read more in the Berkeley Lab News Center.

Opportunity to Mentor High School Students through Biotech Partners Summer Internships

The Biosciences Area has a partnership with Biotech Partners (BP), a non-profit with the mission of educating underserved youth in the Bay Area with personal, academic and professional development experiences that increase participation in higher education and access to fulfilling science careers. In 2016 the Biosciences Area provided internships to 13 high school students.

We are looking for mentors who have a strong commitment to teaching a young student. The mentor has to be physically present throughout the internship. Learn more.

Applications for 2017 iCLEM Program Are Now Open

iclem-300x300JBEI’s iCLEM program offers paid summer science experience to current sophomores and juniors in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco schools. Selected students will complete a real-world biofuels research project in a state-of-the-art lab, prepare for the college admissions process, and explore STEM careers. Application deadline is March 12. Read more on the JBEI website.

DOE JGI Summer Intern Author on GOLD Article

Kaushal Sharma, one of five Antioch High School rising juniors who participated in internships at the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) this summer through the Biotech Partners program is now an author on a Nucleic Acids Research publication. The paper describes the version 6 data updates and feature enhancements to the Genomes OnLine Database (GOLD) administered by JGI. T.B.K Reddy, Kaushal’s mentor, described his student’s contributions as reviewing close to 3,800 metagenomes to verify geographic locations and assign latitude and longitude values “This exercise helped us in filling or updating geographic information for nearly 1,100 samples,” said Reddy. Kaushal also reviewed and assigned NCBI taxonomy name and IDs for nearly 20,000 public/private mtagenome biosamples in GOLD. “Besides these, he curated several small sets of phylogeny, biosample metadata tasks we assigned.” What did you do for your summer vacation?

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