Topic: Bioinformatics

The Data Science Institute's career panel series continued on June 28 with a discussion of LLNL’s COVID-19 research and development. Four data scientists talked about their work in drug screening, protein–drug compounds, antibody–antigen sequence analysis, and risk factor identification.

Kevin McLoughlin has always been fascinated by the intersection of computing and biology. His LLNL career encompasses award-winning microbial detection technology, a COVID-19 antiviral drug design pipeline, and work with the ATOM consortium.

From molecular screening, a software platform, and an online data to the computing systems that power these projects.

On a recent video episode of The Data Standard Podcast, biostatistician Nisha Mulakken discusses the Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array (LLMDA) system, which has detection capability for all variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Nisha Mulakken is advancing COVID-19 R&D and mentoring the next generation. “The opportunities we are exposed to early in our careers can shape the limits we place on ourselves and our approaches to challenges we encounter throughout our careers,” she says.

Marisa Torres, software developer with LLNL’s Global Security Computing Applications Division, combines her love of biology with coding.

This genome sequencing technology helps accelerate the comparison of genetic fragments with reference genomes and improve the accuracy of the results as compared to previous technologies.