Samuel Davis

Background

About Samuel Davis

I am a Biology graduate currently undertaking a Bioinformatics MSc at Newcastle University where I am developing data science and programming skills alongside my skillset in molecular biology. I hope to pursue a career encompassing computational biology or data science to put my skills to use! Currently, I am building a tool to aid bioprospecting efforts, which analyses a metagenomics dataset that encompasses > 300 million genes. This will allow researchers to identify environemnts with the highest functional diversity within a selected biochemical property (Enzyme Commission Number). As part of my degree I have focused on constructing and using pipelines/tools written primarily with Python, R, and SQL. I have also undertaken modules focusing on deterministic/stochastic modelling of cellular systems, statistics/data analysis, and network analysis. I feel my Biology Bsc from Lancaster University gave me the an exceptional grounding and context for the work I am currently undertaking. My interest in high-throughput data analysis and bioinformatics was developed here as I not only took an introductory module to bioinformatics, but developed novel methods for the image analysis of trypanosomes. Here I semi-automated the identification / masking of vermiform cells and fluorescent measurement to understand the heat shock response in trypanosomes. My methods and results allowed our lab group to quantify the success of differing microscopy methods. I also have great interpersonal and communication skills which I have consistently developed through my customer facing and team roles (Waitrose and Partners / Construction Worker) but also through weekly meetings and presentations to my lab group as part of both dissertation projects.