qichen fu
Phd CANDIDATE in molecular genetics and genomics
EXPECTED graduation 2028
As a PhD candidate in Molecular Genetics and Genomics at Washington University in St. Louis, most of my research focuses on computational genomics. Through the Pivot 314 Fellowship, I had the opportunity to step outside my usual academic research environment and spend the summer at Panome Bio, a St. Louis biotechnology company specializing in metabolomics, proteomics, and integrated multi-omics approaches for biological discovery.
At Panome Bio, I worked on an R&D project that allowed me to apply many of the bioinformatics skills I developed during my PhD while also exploring a new area of research. My project involved developing and carrying out computational analyses, interpreting results from proteomics and genomic data, and organizing the analyses into a reproducible workflow with documentation and a final presentation.
One of my most significant accomplishments was taking the project from an initial biological question to a complete analysis package that could be understood and reproduced by others. This required more than simply running computational tools. I had to decide which analyses were most informative, troubleshoot unexpected results, organize increasingly complex outputs, and determine how to communicate the main findings clearly.
That process highlighted one of the biggest differences I noticed between academic research and working in a biotechnology startup. In graduate school, research projects can evolve over long periods as new questions emerge. During my internship, I became more conscious of balancing scientific depth with efficiency. I learned to ask not only, “What else can we analyze?” but also, “Which analysis will actually help answer the question we care about?” and “How will this help clients?”
I also gained a much better appreciation for reproducibility and scientific communication. An analysis is much more useful when another scientist can understand why it was performed, reproduce it, and build upon it. Preparing my final workflow, documentation, and presentation pushed me to think about my work from the perspective of other team members rather than only from my own perspective as the person performing the analysis.
Beyond the project itself, one of my favorite parts of the internship was learning about the people behind a biotechnology company. Conversations with scientists at Panome Bio exposed me to career paths that I had not previously considered and showed me how expertise in computational biology, proteomics, metabolomics, and other disciplines can come together to solve applied scientific problems.
Before this summer, I knew I was interested in computational biology in industry, but I had relatively limited experience with what that career actually looked like day-to-day. My time at Panome Bio made that path much more tangible. I discovered that I enjoy working on collaborative, application-oriented scientific problems and seeing computational analyses contribute to a larger goal.
I am grateful to my mentor, the Panome Bio team, and the Pivot 314 Fellowship for making this experience possible. The internship not only expanded my technical skills beyond genomics, but also gave me a clearer picture of how I hope to use my PhD training in the future.
