Elegant experiments, hidden patterns, and ‘drosophilosophy’

Edridge D’Souza ’19, biochemistry and molecular biology, Commonwealth Honors College, just won the prestigious Churchill scholarship, which provides funding for a year of post-graduate study at the U.K.’s University of Cambridge, where he will complete a master’s program in Genetics. As an undergrad here at UMass, D’Souza has been working with Drosophila (fruit flies) in Michele Markstein’s genetics lab.

How has your time at UMass shaped your understanding of science?

I came into UMass thinking that science was a thing you had to know, like a set of facts that you would learn in class and parrot back on an exam. At some point when I was taking General Genetics, I realized that real world science was very different. Science isn't a thing you learn or memorize. It’s a process. The best scientists don't just know a lot of facts — they have the ability to think critically and apply their knowledge in new situations.

A good experiment is elegant and has a sort of mathematical beauty. I became excited to try to think about clever and elegant experiments in my own research life. Joining the lab of Dr. Markstein — and also working over the summers at UMass Medical School under Dr. Nick Rhind and the Dr. Craig Mello — gave me the opportunity to learn how to ask the right questions and propose the right experiments myself.

What sort of research are you working on?

We know that the blueprint that makes us who we are is kept in our DNA. While scientists thought that sequencing the genome would grant us immediate understanding of human genetics, the truth is far more complicated. We're finding that the building blocks of that genome have patterns that are far more complex than you'd ever expect, patterns that fundamentally change how our ‘blueprints’ work. For my thesis project, we found a genetic ‘signature’ that we think may explain a fundamental way that sex-linked traits are regulated. The data has been there for almost two decades now, yet someone just needed to look in the right direction to find the hidden pattern! My running goal as a researcher has been to get a better grip on how to see patterns that are hiding in plain sight. The world is just a big source of untapped, unanalyzed data.

How did you get this opportunity as an undergraduate?

I emailed professors for lab opportunities in the summer before my freshman year. Dr. Markstein was the first one who called me out for an interview. As it turned out, they were looking to start using an image processing program that I already had some experience with, so as a sort of audition, I recorded a YouTube tutorial for the lab. The rest is history! I thought that working on the genetics of cancer stem cells was an incredibly cool topic, so even though Dr. Markstein told me to wait 24 hours before accepting her offer, I had already made up my mind within the first five minutes.

What do you think has been key to your success so far?

I've had the good luck to have amazing opportunities and mentorship, which I believe is a major reason why I was able to win the Churchill award. There is zero doubt in my mind that there are others out there with the potential to do the same, if only they had the chance.

At UMass, I have met brilliant scientific minds from all walks of life. Going to a public university has greatly shaped my perspective on who can do science. UMass should be generous with scholarships in order to attract bright and deserving minds from all backgrounds: people who might otherwise choose not to go to college, or to go to a different school. It definitely was what brought me to study here, and I hope UMass can keep doing it.

What will you be working on in Cambridge, and what happens after that?

I'm looking to study the two genes SoxN and Diachete, which regulate central nervous system development in the fruit fly. While my research at UMass has largely been computational, I want to mix computational analysis with traditional lab techniques so I can handle genetics from multiple perspectives. I think that will help prepare me for a career in biomedical research.

We have a lot of the same genetic material as other species, but we end up using it differently depending on what genes are turned on or off. There's a lot the scientific community has uncovered, but the truth is that we don't fully understand how genes are regulated yet. I want to move that research forward. The more we understand our genes, the better we'll be able to understand sickness and disease, too.