On a hot weekend in July, Bay Area science lovers queued up for their turn to moonlight as a genetic detective tasked with identifying a mysterious animal species based solely on a fragment of its DNA, part of an “escape room” experience hosted by Northeastern University.
One by one, the savvy scientific investigators donned lab coats and got to work, inspecting the incomplete genetic code and translating its three-character DNA codes into letters that could be rearranged to form clues about the species in question. Once they cracked the puzzle and entered the correct letter sequence into a cylindrical “cryptex” tool, the animal was revealed and the game was won.
The interactive display at the Open Sauce science fair in San Mateo was created by Northeastern’s Jen Cassano 一 chemistry professor and faculty coordinator for the Oakland bioinformatics master’s program 一 and graduate student Aamna Zia Ullah Sheikh. Drawing on themes from Northeastern’s bioinformatics master’s program, whose inaugural Oakland cohort graduated in 2026, Cassano and Sheikh aimed to introduce the next generation of scientists to the complex field of study and its particular importance in the Bay Area.
Bioinformatics combines biology, computer science and data analysis to help researchers make sense of large amounts of biological data, including DNA, said Maxim Wolf, director of the bioinformatics master’s program. The discipline can be applied to areas ranging from cancer and infectious disease research to population genetics, agriculture and drug discovery.
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Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Marcus Sherman received his PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of Michigan. As a multidisciplinary educator, Dr. Sherman has expertise in both the biological and computational sciences. His expansive knowledge and passion for bioinformatics education are reflected in his commitment to developing new pedagogical methods across multiple programs—including the successful implementation of an assessment framework, CARE (Collaborative Agency and Reflective Evaluation), in College of Science and Khoury College of Computer Sciences courses.
Dynamic biogeochemical consequences of host-virus interactions in marine diatoms
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Ainslie Forbes recalls sitting in company-wide meetings during her co-op at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) and hearing patients’ stories. Much of her role was spent behind a computer, supporting the data that underpin cancer research in the province. But those meetings brought the human impact of her contributions into focus.
The co-op proved eye-opening for the Master of Science in Bioinformatics student. It not only exposed her to the realities of cancer research but also helped her determine her own professional goals.
“I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to continue to a PhD or go straight into the workforce after my master’s,” says Forbes, who is the first Northeastern University student in Toronto to complete a co-op at the OICR. “This co-op helped me see the kinds of roles available and decide that I want to enter the field now. It also showed me that you can do meaningful research with a master’s degree and still grow professionally.”
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Andrey Ptitsyn has over three decades of academic and industry experience in building the infrastructure, services, and research programs in Computational Biosciences. Ptitsyn is a computational generalist with a special interest in Algorithms, Big Data Analytics, HPC, AI, ML and applications in interdisciplinary research. He graduated from the Novosibirsk State University in Russia with a Master of Science degree in Mathematical Biology and the University of Western Cape in South Africa with PhD in Bioinformatics in 2001.
Ptitsyn has published over 50 peer-reviewed research papers with over 4000 total citations. His current research interests include the development of novel approaches in AI to infer functional patterns in large-scale heterogeneous data, including personal genomes, multi-omics, insurance claims and electronic health records.