Visitor of the Week: María Jose Gomez Hughes

Meet María Jose Gomez Hughes who is affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia). At the University of Texas, María Jose is a scientist associate in the Genomic Sequencing and Analysis Facility (GSAF) while she is a collaborator in Andrew J. Crawford’s lab in the Universidad de los Andes. The Colombian national is at CSHL this week attending her first meeting: The Biology of Genomes.  

Tell us about your research.
At the GSAF, I work with researchers through preparing NGS libraries and doing quality control of said libraries. And at the Crawford Lab, I use genomics to understand the conservation status of capybaras and frogs as well as study frog evolution and adaptation to environmental variables.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
I have always found evolution fascinating and have been drawn to understand it, including the role conservation status plays in it. At the same time, I greatly enjoy being in the lab and helping other people.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I am inspired by all the great women and non-binary people in science, both by their work and by their resilience. I am also inspired by the world around me, by its beauty and intricacy. 

Where do you see yourself in five years?
I see myself in the same place I am right now. I greatly enjoy my work and wouldn’t want to change it.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I enjoy solving problems and being able to feed my curiosity.

What drew you to attend this meeting?
I thought the Biology of Genomes to be a great place to learn about all the genomics research taking place all around the world.

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
There is way more innovative research going on in genomics, both in wet and dry lab, than I previously thought. I plan to apply some of the things I learned in my research and see what new things I can find.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
I would advise them to take it slow. There are a lot of things going on and it can become a bit hectic so try to enjoy not only the meeting and the great science, but also all the natural surroundings.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
There are a lot of memorable things that happened during the meeting and it’s hard to choose one, but being able to engage with other researchers and discuss with them in person was definitely a great change.

Is this your first in-person meeting since the pandemic? If so, any thoughts you’d like to share?
Yes, it’s great to be able to talk to people about their research in person, in particular at the poster sessions. Having presented online before, I know how hard it can be so it’s great to have in-person meetings again; though online meetings are still great for accessibility and to engage with a broader audience.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
How beautiful it is around here. There’s so much nature going on in and around campus. I was very pleasantly surprised by it.

Thank you to Maria Jose for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Maria Jose Gomez Hughes

Visitor of the Week: Julia Nepper

Meet Julia Nepper of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison! Julia is a postdoctoral trainee in Jo Handelsman’s lab and is with us this week at The Biology of Genomes meeting. This is Julia’s first meeting at CSHL and she presented a poster titled “Genetic regulation of soil microbe biofilm formation in response to sublethal antibiotic treatment”.

Tell us about your research.
My research centers around understanding how the chemicals that soil bacteria produce allow them to communicate with each other. Specifically, I study a system of bacteria that models the rhizosphere, the area of soil on and immediately surrounding plant roots.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
It’s been an interest of the lab for a long time, and there were preliminary results suggesting that some signal was causing a biofilm phenotype in one of the bacteria from our model system. Because I had previous experience with biofilm research, I decided to investigate further.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I’ve been interested in science ever since I could remember, and that passion was nurtured and supported by my parents throughout my childhood education. My undergraduate research experience convinced me to pursue a PhD. When I finish my work with Prof. Handelsman, I’m hoping to pursue a career in communicating science to lay audiences.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I’m hoping that my work will pave the way for a better understanding of bacterial biofilms and communication. Our goal is to establish a model system that can be used by researchers across the globe to interrogate rhizosphere bacterial dynamics in a controlled and methodical manner.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
I would love to be the host of a podcast/video series about science in general, but especially biology.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I love talking to other people about research, and learning not just about the science, but also about the human stories that are behind the work.

What drew you to attend this meeting?
It was brought to my attention by my training grant program director. It seemed like a great opportunity to learn more about what’s state-of-the-art in terms of genomic and transcriptomic research. I am still fairly new to ‘omics, so I appreciate any chance to improve my understanding of the area.

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
I found an interesting poster that discussed different methods for RNA sequencing with low input concentrations. Although the work was done in the context of immune cells, I think it could easily be applicable to my work with bacterial biofilms.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
Although it can be tempting to stick to the subject areas related to what you study, sometimes it’s fun to go to a “random” talk or poster and learn something totally new! And you never know when those insights can actually be super useful for thinking about your work in a different way.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
I virtually “ran into” an old colleague of mine and we had a great discussion catching up on what we’ve been working on the past few years.

Thank you to Julia for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Julia Nepper.

Visitor of the Week: Daria Romanovskaia

Meet Daria Romanovskaia! The Russian national is a graduate student at the Center for Molecular Medicine in Vienna, Austria! She is a member of the Medical Epigenomics Laboratory led by Christoph Bock. Daria is taking part in the virtual 2020 Biology of Genomes meeting which also happens to be her first CSHL meeting.

Tell us about your research.
I am interested in using the power of computational biology to understand the epigenetic heterogeneity of tumors.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
It was a combination of my interest in the field of molecular medicine and in computational methods for data analysis. And it became possible with the rapid development of NGS technologies.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
Curiosity, the wide spectrum of opportunities, and the questions that could be answered every day. More specifically, translational research that can be transferred into clinics and the success stories of making more advanced medicine are what inspire me the most.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope that my research will help further develop the field of precision medicine. Knowing that my results helped at least one person is the best impact I can hope for.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I love the challenge. I also love the journey involved in searching for a solution to a question (and, sometimes, even the search for the question). The time and effort invested in this search becomes eclipsed when data suddenly makes sense and can be interpreted -- even if it may not be in the way it was hypothesized during the brainstorm phase(s).

What drew you to attend this meeting?
My project is still in its early stages to present at a conference so I joined for the opportunity to listen in and get an overview of the field of computational biology. It is really inspiring. :)

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
I have some new tools and concepts I want to try out but the motivation and inspiration from the talks are my key takeaways. This conference is an amazing place to discuss any questions that one can have, and I look forward to coming back as a presenter one day.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
Stay focused and don’t be shy to talk to people! (Or, as is the case for this year’s meeting, message them!)

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
Taking part in the Meet the Speakers. I joined two sessions and my experience resulted with great career advice as well as this one line that is helpful for all researchers to know and be reminded of: Be excited about your research!

Thank you to Daria for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Daria Romanovskaia

Visitor of the Week: Rahul Pisupati

Meet Rahul Pisupati of the Gregor Mendel Institute of the Austrian Academy of Science (Austria). The PhD student in Magnus Nordborg’s lab made the voyage to participate at his first-ever CSHL meeting: The Biology of Genomes. And his inaugural voyage also involved a poster presentation. His poster (entitled “Elucidating causes of methylation variation in Arabidopsis thaliana”) received “many constructive comments” and Rahul is already considering his return to the Lab.

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am a computational biologist by training and my research interests are at the intersection of quantitative genetics, population genomics and epigenetics. Currently, I am working on population epigenetics in Arabidopsis thaliana, trying to understand various sources shaping methylation variation in natural populations.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
Since college, I have always been eager to learn new theories in evolutionary biology. It is really fascinating how principles in population genetics can be extrapolated to understand any group dynamics (even social groups). To some level I wanted to work on some of the exciting questions in the field.

How did your scientific journey begin?
It started during my masters when I went to Dr. Nolan Kane lab at Boulder, Colorado for a summer research position. We had very engaging journal club discussions on classical papers in evolutionary biology.

Was there something specific about The Biology of Genomes meeting that drew you to attend?
Attending this meeting is a great opportunity to share and get feedback from brilliant minds. Also, it is one of the biggest meetings with a focus on population genomics and current technological advances in the field.

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
All the talks are excellent, aiming at recent advances in the field. It is very hard to hone in on one takeaway message, but there were many informative talks bridging the gap between genotype and phenotype and single-cell genomics.

What did you pick up or learn from the meeting that you’d like to apply to your work?
Yes, I had many constructive comments on the poster I presented. Also, it feels great to meet people whose papers you were reading.

If someone curious in attending the 2020 iteration of this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would definitely recommend they attend this meeting. Submit an abstract for the opportunity to present your work and get the attention of editors of every big journal you know of.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
CSHL is an amazing campus promoting social life along with scientific advances, and provides one to easily retreat into nature. The events were well-organized and each received a huge level of participation.

Thank you to Rahul for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Visitor of the Week: Brunilda Balliu

Meet Brunilda “Bruna” Balliu of the Stanford University School of Medicine. The Albanian-Greek national is a postdoctoral fellow in Stephen Montgomery’s lab in the Department of Pathology. Bruna returned to campus for The Biology of Genomes meeting where she presented a poster entitled “Longitudinal study of gene expression and regulation during a critical period of the aging process”.

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am a biostatistician by training and my research interests focus on the development of novel statistical methods for high-dimensional genomic data. Scientifically, I am interested
in aging and am currently profiling changes in transcription regulation that occur during advanced aging in humans.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
After finishing my PhD, I wanted to extend my statistical background into translational genomics research that more directly impact human health. I am fortunate that my postdoctoral advisor, Stephen Montgomery is involved in numerous collaborations because there were plenty of potential projects to select from when I joined his lab. The project on aging jumped out at me for several reasons. First, aging in an undeniably interesting subject. Second, we had access to a first-of-its-kind data set of functional genomics from individuals in their seventies, eighties, and eventually from those in their nineties. Finally, I have a standing interest in statistical methods for longitudinal data. 

How did your scientific journey begin? 
I did my undergraduate studies in Statistics in Athens, Greece, when the country’s financial crisis began. As I approached graduation, I started looking for a Masters in Finance program but, thankfully, my professors encouraged me to also look for PhD positions in biostatistics. I took the PhD route and the rest is history! 

Was there something specific about The Biology of Genomes meeting that drew you to attend?
This meeting is world-renowned for excellent talks presented by leaders in the field and on their latest work. Since this is a new area for me, I was very excited to attend and gain a broader view of what my colleagues are working on. 

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
In the past few years, there has been huge progress in both sequencing technology and computational capacities that has allowed researchers to move from observational to large-scale interventional studies. I was impressed by the number of talks presented here based on experiments across multiple species, cell types, environmental conditions etc.     

What did you pick up or learn from the meeting that you plan to apply to your work?  
It’s a great place to network since the structure of the meeting encourages people to interact. I’m going back home full of ideas. After seeing Julien Ayroles and Amanda Lea's work on the impact of genetic and environmental perturbations on molecular co-regulation, and talking to Julien, I’m excited about extending my work to understand the impact of aging on gene-gene interactions in humans. 

If someone curious in attending a future iteration of this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
This is one of the busiest meetings you will ever attend so get some sleep the week before and leave some room to recover afterwards.

How many CSHL meetings have you attended?
This is my second meeting here. I attended the Probabilistic Modeling in Genomics in 2015 and will be attending that same meeting this November.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
It's definitely the conversations. This meeting gives you a lot of time for discussions, and that is a key component of a successful meeting for me. 

Thank you to Bruna for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Photograph provided by Bruna Baillau