Simay Dolaner, Research Fellow at Pine Biotech shares her review of the OmicsLogic Research Fellowship program

“I am Simay Dolaner who is studying Molecular Biology and Genetics at Bahcesehir University,  Turkey. I am an undergraduate research assistant at a cancer biology laboratory, experienced  in the wet lab, and practiced diverse experiments. However, my knowledge of dry lab in the  means of bioinformatics was quite limited. During the pandemic, I wanted to improve myself  in this field and came across the internship opportunity at Pine Biotech. When I examined the  website of the program, I saw that it was a very well-equipped and extremely educational  program, but I was not sure how to handle it as my knowledge was so little. To make the long  story short, I have now completed this 3-months journey.  

During this period, I had the opportunity to improve myself in the field of omics technologies  such as genomics, metagenomics, epigenetics, and transcriptomics. I learned the machine  learning algorithms in an unsupervised and supervised manner. I gained practice with quizzes,  hands-on assignments, and small projects. My advisors were always there for me in every  challenge I encountered and always supported me. The feedback I received at our weekly  meetings prompted me to develop further and interpret the results from different perspectives.  In these meetings, while each trainee presented their progress, we also had the chance to discuss  it together. So, it was very valuable to me to be able to brainstorm and share my thoughts in an  international environment.  

Learn more about her project here – https://learn.omicslogic.com/blog/post/research-project-lncrnas-as-therapeutic-targets-in-chronic-lymphocytic-leukemia

The most important point of this internship was that we could conduct our own bioinformatics  project at the end of our internship. This project was the place to show what I learned and use  my practice for a big project. My project titled “Identification of lncRNAs as Therapeutic  Targets in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia” focused on transcriptomics analysis of two  specific subtypes of chronic lymphocytic leukemia to identify possible therapeutic targets that  are necessary to establish an efficient treatment strategy. To be more specific, I investigated  the mechanism behind the spontaneous regression, which is the disappearance of the tumor  over time with or without any treatment, to understand the cell’s decision by comparing the  spontaneous regression and the progressive tumor state. In this project, I identified significant  lncRNAs that can be used as therapeutic targets in chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells. I had  several challenges on this journey, but every moment was worth it because I learned a lot and  improved myself. 

Now, I know that big data bioinformatics is one of the leading fields of the future by enhancing  itself with the changing technology. It is a new concept that anyone interested in science can  use for large-scale research and can understand the details hidden in the big picture. This area  will certainly shed light on the future, but I believe it will also enrich my future research and help me produce more comprehensive studies.” – Simay Dolaner

Simay has scored over 61,000 points in the course of her Research Fellowship. You can check out her profile here – https://edu.t-bio.info/members/simaydolaner/profile/

Learn more about our OmicsLogic Research Fellowship here – https://edu.tbioinfo.com/bioinformatics-internship-2020

Learn more about the project by our community members here – https://edu.t-bio.info/project-examples/