This summer at Northwestern University, I had the privilege of conducting undergraduate research in the Heart-GeN Lab under Dr. Kynon J. Benjamin. My research focused on quantifying DNA methylation biomarkers in relation to schizophrenia risk in African American post-mortem brain samples. The research I conducted discovered that current biostatical tools used to evaluate DNA methylation are unsuccessful finding pathology in Black patients. Even when utilizing measures designed specifically for schizophrenia, epigenetic clocks and methylation risk scores were unable to detect the difference between schizophrenic brains and neurotypical brains. This body of research has pushed my lab to develop new clocks trained specifically on African Americans to create tools that work on all people, not just those of European descent.
To conduct my research, I had to adjust to an entirely new field. While my previous research was in Global Health, a mentor at MIT suggested I expand my skills in computation and epigenetics. My research at Northwestern challenged me to learn programming, computation, software development, algorithmic development and statistical analysis methods in a single summer. Although my research was challenging, the skills built, and most importantly, the findings of my research were worth the countless hours learning how to program and analyze big data.
Nia Terry
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