LoxCode Student Internship Project

Introduction

LoxCode is a novel technology developed in the Naik lab at WEHI that allows to create on demand random tags (or barcodes) in the DNA of living cells. These tags are read out via next generation sequencing and help to study important questions in biology like cancer evolution or embryonic development. Given that both the technology and the data it generates are new, no software is currently available that would facilitate the analysis, especially for experimental researchers less familiar with programming and computation. Therefore, to make this tool available to a wider community, an easy to use R package (LoxcodeR) and a graphical use-interface (GUI) to process and analyze the sequencing data generated are under development.

Duties while on placement

The role of the intern is to:

extend the existing LoxcodeR package and GUI software for the analysis of novel biological data
work closely with experimental researchers to identify their needs around Loxcode data analysis and visualization
Potential to develop new visualizations and analysis pipelines
Potential to experiment with AI to create scripts to generate data analysis reports in a consistent automated or semi-automated way.

There is also a fair amount of flexibility with this project to allow the student to inject their own ideas and introduce new features and functionality.

Skills and Pre-requisites

Skills and Pre-requisites:

Interests in biological data analysis and biomedical research software applications
Ability to learn and understand high-level concepts quickly
Ability to work independently and to report to a group and discuss theories and results
Good analytical skills

Benefits for students

Benefits for students whilst undertaking the internship include:

Learn new and apply already acquired data analytical skills to a cutting-edge biomedical application
Gain insights into a modern interdisciplinary research environment at WEHI
Deepen knowledge in the statistical computing language R