Student Profile
Kofi
I am a co-mentored student in the laboratories of Dr. Marcin Imielinski at Weill Cornell/New York Genome Center and Dr. David Lyden at Weill Cornell/Sloan Kettering. My research combines the computational expertise of the Imielinski lab with the experimental knowledge and resources of the Lyden lab. My work primarily focuses on how exosomes, a class of cellular-derived vesicle, influence the topography of somatic DNA variation in cancer and I was fortunate to have received an NSF graduate research fellowship in 2018 to support my research.
As a graduate student in the CBM program I chose to spend my first year in Ithaca on the main campus of Cornell University. I was able to pursue rotation projects broadly covering the areas of T-cell development and differentiation; epigenetic regulation of gene expression; and horizontal gene transfer within the human microbiome. One of the most beneficial aspects of my time in Ithaca was the outstanding quality of courses offered there. I was also able to take classes specific to the field of computational biology, genomics, and statistics. These courses exposed me to new methods, and techniques and quickly addressed the need to increase knowledge in order to understand and apply computational approaches to biomedical research.
In my experience, biomedical research can easily cause a whole range of emotions in a single day. What always keeps me grounded and motivated through the ups and downs of working in the biomedical research environment is the exciting ability to work on the cutting edge of discovery. As a CBM graduate student this is readily available. I am continually amazed by the novel research produced not just in my field but across the diverse disciplines of biomedical science. It is these exciting developments and discoveries which allow us to better understand fundamental aspects of biology and leaves me eager to make my own contributions.