MY BIOINFORMATICS JOURNEY

Sharon Watiri

Vision

● To become an all rounded scientist

● To gain hands-on experience via mini-projects

● To gain more knowledge from experienced scientists through training and mentorship

Goals

• To equip myself with relevant core skills in bioinformatics; Programming, Sequencing technologies, NGS data manipulation
• To improve on soft skills; presentation skills, communication skills
• Networking

Overview

• Internship duration- 4 months
• Trainers- Dr. Caleb, Ruth, Pauline, Laurah, Ken, Eric
• Month 1- Training
• Month 2- Reproducing a paper
• Month 3 and 4- Mini-project

Training

• Introduction to Bioinformatics - NGS, Phylogenetics
• Programming - R, Python, Bash, HPC use, Version Control using GitHub, pipelines, Scripting
• Soft Skills - Personality traits, Good leadership skills, Communication skills, Presentation skills, Conflict resolution, Career planning and mentorship, CV Motivation and cover letter , Interview Preparation

​

Reproducing research

• 16S-analysis-on-prokaryotic-diversity-in-vended-food-and-environmental-samples

​

• Main Challenge - Poor quality sequences

​

• Positives- Write a nextflow script, submitting jobs using slurm, advanced googling, R, QIIME 2

​

​

​

Mini project

• Mining arbovirus sequences from East Africa (Zika, Dengue, Chikungunya, West Nile, Yellow fever)

​

• Pangenomics for the individual viruses

Achievements

• Reproducing a research paper
• Gaining more knowledge through participation in journal clubs, interacting with MSc. students in and out of the MBBU unit
• Embracing computer science skills
• Improved on my soft skills
• Gained further sights in how to plan my career
• Made new friends

​

Interests

• Antibiotic resistance and the the use of Bacteriophages as a potential treatment
• Genetics and non-communicable diseases

Acknowledgements

• MBBU
• Cohort 5
• Trainers

THANK YOU!