Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

School of Informatics, Indiana University IUPUI

Overview

Bioinformatics

Alumni Testimonials

Amy Schmidbauer

Amy SchmidbauerAfter completing my Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I began my professional career at Cargill Hybrid Seeds in Aurora, Illinois.  I led the effort to develop Cargill’s first bioassays for testing commercial seed lines for the presence of genetically engineered traits, including herbicide and insect resistance.  When Dow AgroSciences, an agricultural biotech subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company, acquired Cargill Hybrid Seeds in mid-2001, I interviewed for the position of LIMS Analyst in Discovery Research.  When I was offered the job, the fact that Indiana University had one of the only graduate bioinformatics degree programs in the country at that time, played a major part in my decision to accept the position and relocate to Indianapolis.  Bioinformatics was a perfect discipline for me because it allowed me to blend my background in microbiology and interest in computer science.  IUPUI’s convenient location, along with the early evening/night courses offered by the bioinformatics and computer science departments, enabled me to simultaneously pursue a Master’s degree in bioinformatics and full-time career at Dow AgroSciences.


My master’s thesis project was a collaboration between Dr. Sean Mooney (Assistant Professor, Indiana University School of Medicine) and Dr. Giselle Knudsen (NCI postdoctoral fellow, Bindley Bioscience Center at Purdue Discovery Park). The goal of the project was to find statistically significant sequence motifs, through sequence and functional analysis, in proteins secreted by the infective form of the parasitic flatworm Schistosoma mansoni; the motifs could then potentially be used in the development of new drug targets or vaccines.  (S. mansoni causes schistosomiasis, a disease endemic to 74 developing countries.) The project was challenging and extremely gratifying.  It helped me gain a deeper understanding of the importance of such research, how to approach bioinformatics-related problems, and how bioinformatics can be used in conjunction with laboratory research to solve research problems. 

The skills and knowledge I gained through bioinformatics courses and thesis work at IUPUI complimented projects I worked on at Dow AgroSciences, and vice versa.  The environment at IUPUI and within the bioinformatics department and the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics allowed me to build up a network of professors, fellow students, and other working professionals. Several of my fellow students came to work as interns in Discovery Research at Dow AgroSciences, three of whom are now employed full-time at Dow AgroSciences. 

Completing the Master’s degree program in bioinformatics at IUPUI enriched my life and my career.  I am now pursuing a new opportunity as a business systems analyst in Pathology Research at Genentech, Inc., a pharmaceutical company in South San Francisco, CA.