HackBio Internship
From Basics to Advanced
Me?
I am Khatendra Reang from Tripura, India. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology from St. Francis De Sales College, Nagpur, and a Master of Science in Biochemistry from Hislop College, Nagpur, Maharashtra.
HackBio Team: Genomics-two
Email: rkyokmusic@gmail.com
My Interest
I am interested in Genomics research as it drives me to understand the relation of genes behavior among the normal and mutated genes.
Adventure to HackBio
HackBio Internship is my first internship in my life that exposes me to the real journey of work. This will be remembered for life, it boosted me a lot in the knowledge of computational biology and in writing research proposals, manuscripts, and pitching. I never thought online internships would be very effective but I have to say it’s too effective just like how we do the work in the lab. HackBio internship is a new adventure for me as it has opened my eyes to unseen science. I always thought Life Science is always related only with Lab work, haven’t thought of computational work. Before, joining the internship I had a little knowledge of Bioinformatics. I had never explored the websites, tools, and software's but this internship has upgraded me with wide knowledge in computational biology.
Skills I learned
These internships had imparted me with many skills and knowledge and had ignited my imagination. I was a beginner in programming languages in R, Python, and Gitbash. Just knew that R and Python are programmers for data science but I knew nothing about Github, Gitbash, and the Galaxy server at all.
After joining the internship I was on a blackout and didn’t know what to do. It feels like I was on an unknown planet. But to my surprise, the teammates and the organizers were so kind that they provided a channel called resource where they provide resourceful articles for the beginners.
In the first week, I learned about scripting in Gitbash and Github, and in the second week, I was introduced to software, websites, and tools related to Bioinformatics, where I performed sequencing of the genes using multiple sequence alignment tools.
Also, I learned to make workflow pipelines by git. In the third week, I learned to make research proposals and manuscript writing and also the process of generating various data using databases from NCBI.
The fourth week and the last week of the internships taught me many things from basics to advanced. Actually I didn’t even know what was the elevator pitch? How to check for the Journal?
But I do know now, everything from the beginning how to proceed with research and how to submit because that is what it is taught in the internship.
I’m really fortunate that I got this opportunity, if given again I would happily enroll for it.
Apart from subjects related I also gained soft skills like leadership, teamwork, group discussion. Before the internship, I did my project work by myself which was really hard and time-consuming but HackBio taught me and made me realize that teamwork can reduce your workload and also save your time.
Before the internship, I did my project work by myself which was really hard and time-consuming but HackBio taught me and made me realize that teamwork can reduce your workload and also save your time.
I can’t believe that the project to be taken for 2–3 months was completed in just 5 weeks. This is what teamwork and this is what this internship HackBio taught me. So my experience and journey with the HackBio internship are very interesting and challenging. Now I have a very good taste of Bioinformatics and I wish to do further research more related to bioinformatics.
How to Improve HackBio
I like to suggest that the duration of the internship should be quite long so that beginners like me in languages and tools can learn well at the beginning of the first week. And also the introduction of the project can be provided in the orientation so that each person can be prepared.
Acknowledgment
I sincerely thank HackBio and the organizers for giving me this great opportunity and wonderful rides to Computational biology. I also extend my warm gratitude to all my fellow interns for helping me and supporting me. This internship will really spark my career.
Thank You, Science! Thank You, HackBio!
