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Author: Anna Sueki •
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Note: this is another interview in our series “Life in the Lab”, which gives unedited accounts of students who have spent time with us. —Christophe
Please introduce yourself in a few sentences.
I am Anna Sueki, 3rd year Biochemistry student at UCL. I did my summer internship at Dr. Dessimoz’s lab during summer 2014. I’m originally from Japan, but grew up in Singapore and Germany.
Why did you choose to join the lab?
During my second year, I took a module called “Computational Biology” and I really enjoyed learning programming and other computational aspects in biology. Dr. Dessimoz was one of the lecturer for that module, and since I found his lectures interesting, I applied to his lab for this summer internship.
What project did you work on (and for how long)?
My project was “Synteny visualisation in the OMA browser”. This was for the new release of the OMA browser, and I created the new synteny viewer function within the browser to show neighbouring genes of the entry gene and its ortholog relationships. I worked for 3 months (from June to September 2014) during my summer vacation.
What came out of it?
With the help of other members in the lab, I could produce the synteny viewer function, and it will be implemented in the new OMA browser. Also, explanation of this new function and an example was included in the paper for new OMA release.
Other than this actual project outcome, I learned about how computers and their systems work, programming of Python, and how to use Python’s web framework Django.
New synteny viewer in the OMA Browser
Was there any highlight or low point you’d like to share?
Personally, I enjoyed the lab retreat in Zurich a lot. It was nice to see the members in Zurich who I saw only through video meeting every week. Also I got many helps from Zurich members through the chatting system, especially Adrian and Clement.
What is your overall impression and would you do it again?
I really enjoyed my time in Dr. Dessimoz’s lab, and I learned a lot during these three months. I started without barely any knowledge in computer science but through this summer, I found out that I like learning coding and other computational skills. If I can achieve another chance, I would love to work with Dr. Dessimoz and other members again!