Stay abroad Sophia Müller-Dott

The computational biologist Sophia Müller-Dott spent three months at the University of Copenhagen as part of her doctoral thesis in the LiSyM-Cancer research network (group of Julio Saez-Rodriguez). She worked on two projects at the Center for Protein Research in Jesper V. Olsen's group and very much appreciated the close contact with the experimentalists, as she reports in the interview.

What topics did you work on during your internship?
I mainly worked with phospho-proteomics data. The Center for Protein Research (Københavns Universitet, Novo Nordisk Foundation) offers state-of-the-art mass spectrometry technologies and the group of Jesper V. Olsen deals with the development of the methods themselves and the analysis in various biological contexts. During my time in Copenhagen, I worked on the prediction of successful combination therapies for breast cancer and the analysis of time-resolved multi-omics data. The aim was to identify coordinated biological processes that differ between different stimuli.

How does your experience contribute to LiSyM-Cancer?
The multi-omics time-course analysis was about identifying a set of characteristics that differ between two specific conditions but are coordinated between the different layers. I can also apply this to my evaluations of the data in the modeling in LiSyM-Cancer (C-TIP-HCC). There are many approaches to such a problem. It was exciting to try out a specific method which considers the different omics levels together and go through the entire analysis pipeline.

What else are you taking away with you?
Many contacts with very nice people and the awareness of how well a close exchange between computer scientist and experimentalist promotes mutual understanding. It was also great to get to know another research institute, one at the cutting edge of research. And of course, Copenhagen is a very beautiful city! I am very grateful that the internship abroad was made possible.