My interest in Bioinformatics began when I was an intern at the Basic Sciences Laboratory in Kisumu’s Kenya-USA joint Walter Reed Project housed by KEMRI. There, I had some exposure to sequencing (specifically, Illumina Sequencing), whence I became so fascinated with the idea of sequencing data analysis. Immediately after this internship, I applied for EANBit Masters Program 2020 scholarship program at Pwani University, which I did not get. I was perhaps not baked enough yet. However, I was able to get into ICIPE’s Bioinformatics Internship program where I was introduced into bioinformatics, serving as a catalyst for my bioinformatics enthusiasm. There, I received training on what is, and how to handle data analysis. It was while I was there that I got another opportunity to pursue a Masters in Genetics scholarship offered by the São Paulo State University in Brazil.

The training that I received at ICIPE played a big role in helping me prepare for my exams and interviews for my masters degree. With the basic skills and knowledge that I received there, I finally understood that it was not enough to just produce data. Generated data had to be collected, analyzed and presented in ways that justified doing researches or experiments in the first place. Currently I have been able to apply some of the basic skills learnt to do some data analysis such as exploration of phylogenies of some of the important genes being studied (Python and Bash), manipulation of different organism treatment data using R software and code archiving and/or sharing on GitHub. While I have not been able to focus exclusively on Bioinformatics as a study course yet, I feel that these skills have just opened me up to huge potentials in terms of future possibilities and job perspectives.

In future, I intend to fully pursue Bioinformatics in its purity and keep growing my data analysis and presentation skills. I have been and always will be enthralled with genetic data and how these can be used to add onto current knowledge which would greatly help in finding some of the solutions of problems that have plagued us. In my mind, I feel that the training program received at ICIPE has opened up my mind to see data collection (wet lab) and bioinformatics (dry lab) as parts of a whole and therefore greatly expanded my options for a career path as a scientist. The demand for professionals in bioinformaticians is on the rise, even with the rise of data being generated as we get to understand more the world around us. Already I am eying excellent bioinformatics institutions such as the Max Planck Institute in Germany to help me prepare for the future. Who knows, with bioinformatics, the possibilities are limitless!