Avani Ghate

Hello :) I am a junior at UC Berkeley majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology with a minor in Data Science!

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about me

Hello! :DI'm Avani Ghate, a junior at the University of California, Berkeley. I am majoring in molecular and cell biology with a minor in data science.Alongside this, I am an undergraduate researcher at the Rapé Lab, I am researching bacteriocins in therapeutic contexts under iGEM, and the effects of microgravity on antibiotics in E. Coli through STAC.
I was a data science committee member at Women in Computing and Data Science, and I work as a marketing intern at Asha for Education, Berkeley.Additionally, I interned at Parker Hannifin as a Lab Scientist Intern during Summer '24!
I am interning at Merck Summer '25 as a Discovery Pharmaceutical Sciences Intern :)In my free time, I enjoy drawing, photography, taking long walks, and trying out new coffee shops!Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you'd like to talk :)

experiences

Rapé Lab 🧫

I am an undergraduate researcher at the Rapé Lab in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. I am assisting a postdoc with his project. Specifically, I am using experimental research techniques to investigate the role of ubiquitin ligases in purine metabolism signaling pathways in the human body relating to therapeutic targets for cancer and autoimmune diseases.

iGEM @ Berkeley 🧬

I am a member of iGEM's newest ideation team, Synthetic Therapeutics. I am helping create modified E. coli cells with an optimized colicin system to effectively kill and out-compete wild-type E. coli.I was also a member of iGEM's newest experimental wetlab/compbio team, NavGene. I helped engineer a more thermostable form of the protein IscB-wRNA, an evolutionary precursor to Cas9 with a range of biotechnological applications. We used site-saturation mutagenesis and a toxin-antitoxin system to create a form of this protein that can be used at 37 degrees C in laboratory conditions.

STAC 🔭

I am an Engineering Team Member of the TIME II project at STAC (Space Technologies at Cal). This project tests the effects of microgravity on antibiotics in E. Coli cells.

Women In Computing and Data Science 💻

I was a member of WiCDS' data science committee. Through this, I learned various data science-related topics such as visualizations, cleanup, SQL, and feature engineering, and worked on mini-projects based on real-world issues. I developed a Spotify song predictor which used Euclidian distances and linear regression.

Asha for Education, Berkeley 📚

As a marketing intern for Asha, I help curate graphics and blogs for Asha's social media pages and website.

portfolio

in my free time, i love to draw and write :)
for more of my work, click here.

relevant coursework

Biology 1B: General Biology (FA22)Data C8: Foundations of Data Science (FA22)Math 1A & 1B: Calculus (SP23 and FA23)BIOENG 99: Supervised Independent Study and Research (SP23, FA23, SP24)BIOENG 196: Supervised Independent Study and Research (FA24)BIOENG 199: Supervised Independent Study (SP25)MCB 199: Supervised Independent Study and Research (SP25)Physics 8A & 8B: General Physics (SP23 and FA23)Data C88C: Computational Structures in Data Science (FA23)CS 61B: Data Structures (SP24, audited)CHEM 3A/L and 3B/L: Organic Chemistry (SP24, FA24)MCB c114: Comparative Virology (SP24)Data C100: Principles and Techniques of Data Science (FA24)BIOENG C131: Introduction to Computational Molecular and Cell Biology (FA24)MCB 102: Survey of the Principles of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SP25)MCB 104: Genetics, Genomics & Cell Biology (SP25)COLWRIT 161: Writing in the Biological Sciences (SP25)BIOENG 115: Tissue Engineering Lab (SP25)

contact

Feel free to reach out to me!