Disha

Disha
Olathe North High School
Olathe, KS

Mentor:
AJ Campbell
Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research

Disha became interested in neuroscience from a young age, and was always asking questions about how our brain and body work. Her interest carried through middle school and high school, and she decided she wanted to gain summer research experience in the field of computational biology.

Disha’s project focused on identifying conserved motifs within kinases that could be exploited for drug discovery efforts. Many currently approved drugs are toxic because they hit more than just their desired target. She tried to solve this problem by analyzing protein and kinase databases using multiple software applications.

“My time at the Broad was out of this world,” said Disha. “Everyone was so inclusive and collaborative, and really made me feel like I belonged there.” Her summer helped her realize the importance of talking to other researchers and sharing information and ideas, and encouraged her to pursue a computational biology major in college.