Welcome to Our Summer Researchers

🌟 Meet the HEART-GeN Lab Summer Research Team – 2025 Edition! 🌟

We’re thrilled to welcome a powerhouse group of students diving into cutting-edge questions at the intersection of genetics, neuroscience, and computational biology. Each one brings unique perspectives and skills to the lab, and we couldn’t be more excited to support their journey.

Here’s what our talented summer researchers will be working on:

• 🧬 Nia (SROP) investigating DNA methylation clocks to uncover associations across two postmortem brain regions, focusing on schizophrenia and genetic ancestry.

• 🧠 Emma (SROP) exploring the relationship between schizophrenia and suicide by analyzing three distinct postmortem brain regions — helping us better understand overlapping neurobiological pathways.

• 💻 Amirah, a returning bioscientist student, developing a Shiny App to visualize and explore differential gene expression — a powerful tool for future collaborators.

• 🌱 Elisa, our summer volunteer, working with staff scientist Alexis to examine DNA methylation as a proxy for environmental exposures in three postmortem brain regions.

• 🔗 Javier (SURP) applying variational autoencoders (VAEs) to construct gene-gene networks, contributing to our efforts in uncovering novel functional relationships.

• 🌐 Yiju, our fully remote intern, focused on annotating functional genetic variants identified in our prior studies — bridging the gap between raw discovery and biological insight.

Together, this group exemplifies what happens when curiosity meets collaboration. We’re proud to support their growth as scientists, and we can’t wait to see where their ideas take them next.

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