Intern Spotlight: Ditso Tirelo’s Journey in the Health Data Science Black Internship Programme with ARC and HDR UK

UCL Advanced Research Computing (ARC) recently collaborated with Health Data Research UK (HDRUK) in administering the Health Data Science Black Internship Programme, taking on intern Ditso Tirelo to contribute to research on TP53 mutations using Machine Learning. This was an opportunity for Ditso to apply his existing proficiencies from his background as a graduate student in molecular bioengineering, whilst further developing both technical and non-technical skills. 

The internship was supervised by Professor Benjamin Hall, UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, on a project using statistical methods and Machine Mearning to predict the mutations of the TP53 gene. This would allow for 2 questions to be tested:

• Could a potential driver of the mutations be discerned? 
• Could the gene in healthy patients be distinguished from those of cancer samples?

As TP53 is the most frequently mutated gene in human cancers, these objectives are a key area of cancer research. 

Ditso described the internship as highly collaborative: “I would speak to Ben frequently, almost every day, to update him on what I was doing and what I thought”. There were weekly meetings between Ditso and Prof. Hall to discuss the progress of the project: “I was essentially bouncing ideas off him as frequently as I could, and then he’d guide me”. Ditso also received additional support and guidance from Dr Yevgeniya Kovalchuk and Dr Nicholas Owen of ARC for the Machine Learning aspects of the project, who provided advice for optimisation of the code and troubleshooting of persistent problems. 

By introducing a practical, wide-reaching application, the internship greatly enhanced Ditso’s technical skillset by challenging him beyond the scope of previous university-level assignments. “I was using libraries that I hadn’t used before, which I always appreciate”, he mentioned as part of his development in the use of Python. The frequent meetings with supervisors also allowed him to improve his presentation skills, and the preparation of the report gave Ditso experience in performing open-ended research to a defined deadline. 

““Being able to work independently on your portion of the work while also being well aware that you are still part of a team, and it is still part of a bigger project”— Ditso Tirelo

The project also helped Ditso to hone his career ambitions, “I think it helped me gain more focus for what I wanted to do which is essentially looking at the bioinformatics side of things”. Alongside the project equipping him with a skillset in Machine Learning and other relevant technical skills, Ditso mentioned that “it was also a great confidence boost to see what I could do outside of a school setting”. In his experience, the internship project was much less formalised and structured than his previous university tasks and gave him the opportunity to devise a workflow that suited his own abilities and objectives. This bridged the gap between working towards academic goals to entering the professional workforce.

Ditso’s experience with the HDRUK/ARC Health Data Science Black Internship Programme demonstrates the value of the initiative in providing crucial skills and insight into the world of work. ARC staff members’ contributions to the technical elements were especially significant in guiding Ditso’s progression in machine learning and programming. The collaborative nature of the internship allowed for ARC to provide close and tailored support to Ditso and directly facilitate his contributions to Prof. Hall’s research.