Stretch out
"Something so hard can be so easy if you just have a little help. In the right place, under the right conditions, you can finally stretch out into what you’re supposed to be."
- Hope Jahren in Lab Girl
Leaning back in the seat, I stretched out my legs under the steering wheel. It was only 7 am, but traffic was already thick on highway 3. I was headed up to Boston for the day to meet with my collaborator, Hanny.
Analyzing all the genetic data from our coral samples from Palau is a big job. So big, in fact, that it requires more than your standard computer. There's actually a whole field, called bioinformatics, which centers around the analysis of large sets of biological data. I had never dabbled in bioinformatics before, but Hanny is good at it. She learned how to analyze genomic datasets during her PhD, so she agreed to give me an introduction to the techniques.
We spent all day in her office at Boston University with her puppy, Niku, stretched out on the floor beside us. Hanny first gave me an overview of what it takes to analyze genomic data, and then we pulled out our laptops and set to work. We logged into WHOI's high-performance computing cluster, called Poseidon, and I got my first introduction to coding in bash. I have coded before and even think I'm pretty good, but every language is different. Bash has its own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary - just like a real language. Over the course of the day, I could feel my mind stretching to accommodate the new skills I absorbed.
My visit to BU was also a chance to meet Hanny's new lab. She's a postdoc in the Davies Marine Population Genomics Lab, which studies coral reefs in the context of rapidly changing environments. I was glad for the chance to meet her advisor and labmates in person.
It was a great day in Boston, and I'm looking forward to expanding my bioinformatics skills!
- Hope Jahren in Lab Girl
Leaning back in the seat, I stretched out my legs under the steering wheel. It was only 7 am, but traffic was already thick on highway 3. I was headed up to Boston for the day to meet with my collaborator, Hanny.
Analyzing all the genetic data from our coral samples from Palau is a big job. So big, in fact, that it requires more than your standard computer. There's actually a whole field, called bioinformatics, which centers around the analysis of large sets of biological data. I had never dabbled in bioinformatics before, but Hanny is good at it. She learned how to analyze genomic datasets during her PhD, so she agreed to give me an introduction to the techniques.
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| Hanny, Niku, and I in her office at BU |
My visit to BU was also a chance to meet Hanny's new lab. She's a postdoc in the Davies Marine Population Genomics Lab, which studies coral reefs in the context of rapidly changing environments. I was glad for the chance to meet her advisor and labmates in person.
It was a great day in Boston, and I'm looking forward to expanding my bioinformatics skills!
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