David Baltrusaitis
Home Institution: Loyola University Chicago
Year: Junior
Major: Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology Majors / Biostatistics minor
Interests: I like reading fantasy/sci-fi novels, along with playing many different sports. I'm also a Green Bay Packer fan!
Future Academic/Career Goals: I have interests in graduate, medical, and MD/PhD programs.
IGSP Summer Fellowship Program Faculty Mentor: Dr. Fred Dietrich
Summer Research Project: I am helping Dr. Dietrich design a program in which users have the ability to compare the genes of 93 different strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast). More specifically, I will be creating a heat map to observe the genes. Different mutations (such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms, insertions, and deletions) can then be compared between the different strains. The purpose of this program is to learn more about the evolution of microorganisms, correlate phenotype variation to genotype variation, study human pathogens, and apply this new observational method to the study of other species.