Faheem

Faheem 
B.M.C Durfee High School
Fall River, MA 

Mentor: 
Kyle Satterstrom
Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research | Daly Lab
 

Faheem applied to BSSP to increase his “capabilities in computer science and analyze complex biological systems.” He accomplished just that in his six weeks at the Broad Institute. Faheem was tasked with investigating the connection between two genes related to schizophrenia and autism: GRIN2A and GRIN2B. GRIN2A and GRIN2B encode subunits of a glutamate receptor in the brain which is vital for brain development and synaptic plasticity and affects learning and memory. Using predicted protein structures from AlphaFold and the molecular visualization program PyMOL, Faheem could see how missense mutations from the Autism Sequencing Consortium and the Schizophrenia Exome Sequencing Meta-analysis (SCHEMA) consortium arranged themselves in three-dimensional space. He identified something interesting: mutations in these proteins tend to gather closer together than would be expected if they occurred randomly. He then used the DBSCAN algorithm to understand this clustering, which showed specific locations on the proteins where these mutations tend to be found, suggesting that these spots may be particularly important for brain function. Computational methodologies and findings such as these are important for understanding the etiology of psychiatric diagnoses and could inform the development of future therapeutics. Needless to say, Faheem’s computational goals were met. Upon further reflection he reminisced about other aspects of the program that were valuable to him. He says “BSSP taught me to never give up, whether in the lab or in life. You have to keep trying.”