Awarded in 2022
Home Department: Computer Science
Faculty Advisors: Aaron Newman (Biomedical Data Science) and Michael Clarke (Medicine - Oncology)

Research Title: Decoding Single Cell Developmental States in Health and Disease

Research Description: Stem cells play critical roles in physiological and pathological states. Unfortunately, our understanding of stem cells in human tissues is limited by methods that require specialized knowledge or laborious functional experiments. By exploiting novel measures of cellular developmental potential coupled with machine learning deep neural networks, Minji proposes to devise new computational strategies to reliably predict stem cells and their functional states from single-cell sequencing data. Minji’s successful completion of the proposed research would constitute a major advance in stem cell biology, with potential for transformative impact in multiple fields, including regenerative medicine and oncology, where improved diagnostics and therapeutic strategies are urgently needed.