2025 Cohort, Brown University – Dr. Larschan’s Lab
My First Research Experience: IISAGE Summer 2025
Hello everyone! My name is Romer, I’m a rising junior studying Computational Biology at Brown University from Silver Spring, Maryland. This summer, I had the opportunity to do research in the Larschan Lab at Brown as part of the iiSAGE program.
This summer, I worked on a project that combined my interests in computer science and biology. I built different machine and deep learning models to predict the presence of a DNA motif related to dosage compensation in Drosophila. Using lab generated data from ChIP-seq and micro-c experiments, my models were able to learn important relationships between the input data and motif presence across the X chromosome.
Coming into the program, I was, admittedly, a bit nervous. I had no prior research experience, and although I had some computer science and biology knowledge from previous classes, I had never combined the two in a research setting. However, everybody in the lab was very welcoming, approachable, and eager to help me learn and get adjusted to the new environment. Not only did I learn what working in research meant, but I also learned how to communicate scientific findings with others, read scientific papers effectively, and work as a team towards a common goal.
The highlight of the summer was definitely being able to present my findings to my peers at the iiSAGE virtual expo, as well as at Brown’s Summer Research Symposium. I created a poster with the help of mentors in my lab and was able to share what I found during my research, as well as hear about everybody else’s work. It was very interesting to hear about the different ways people were researching sex differences in aging, and the whole experience was very fulfilling and rewarding.
I had a great time conducting research for the first time, and it is because of this program that I am now considering research as a possible career in the future. To everyone involved in the IISAGE program: thank you for this opportunity! I learned so much and made great connections with other scientists in the field I hope to one day go into. If other prospective applicants are reading this, I highly encourage you to apply and make the most of it! It was a great experience and I am very grateful. Thank you!
