End of 2020!

Finally, this bizarre year is coming to an end. The lockdown and staggered working hours have thrown a wrench into our daily routine, but thanks to the computational aspect of our work, we still managed to do research. Here is what happened in 2020:
1) Despite the lockdown (April-June), our lab managed to produce six papers (2 reviews and 4 original research) this year.

2) Another batch of students graduated from BS1009 - Introduction to Computational Thinking, armed with a solid foundation in Python programming and algorithm development. This year, we had an unusual project for the students: to analyze >20,000 RNA sequencing experiments of pathogenic bacteria, and to identify novel genes that are putatively involved in protein synthesis. The results of the project were published in BMC Biology, and you can read more about our pedagogical adventure here: Strength in Numbers: Research Amidst a Pandemic. ​

3) 23 of the BS1009 undergrads did a two month-long internship in our lab to construct an online database www.fungi.guru. The project is building upon the BMC Bio paper, as the students analyzed >40,000 RNA sequencing samples from the fungi kingdom, and collectively wrote and published a paper. The results have been published in Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal and our journey is described in this article:  Approaching New Frontiers in Fungi Research.

4) Devendra got a lucrative offer from ACM Biolabs Pte Ltd, working there now as a Scientist since September, while IngTsyr moved to Yongui Gao’s lab to continue as Project Officer. Well done, both, and see you around the campus!
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5) The lockdown restlessness caused Marek to build ChuckNorris, a very cost-efficient (<4000$) workstation with 64 cores (128 threads), 256 GB RAM and 16 TB storage. You can read more about the assembly process here.

6) Marek served as a main PhD opponent for Dr. Chanaka Mannapperuma (11.06.2020) and Dr. Bastian Schiffthaler (12.06.2020). Swedish PhD defenses are quite different from the German or Singaporean defenses, as i) the ‘opponent’ needs to make a small presentation introducing the thesis and ii) the ‘opponent’ and ‘defendant’ should discuss for 1 hour in front of the audience. Pretty hardcore! 

7) Three URECA students joined our lab: Erielle Villanueva, Dhira Putri and Wu Jingyuan, to work on organ-specific co-expression, soil metagenomics and a new search engine for scientific articles, respectively. 
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8) Together with Asst. Prof. Adriana Lopes dos Santos, we obtained a collaborative research award to work in single-cell transcriptomics of algae. We are looking for a motivated Project Officer/Research Associate to work on this project.

9) We have two Postdoc positions, and one Project Officer position open. Check out the Openings section.