Bioinformatics is a relatively new field of science that is very interdisciplinary in nature. Its practitioners use a mixture of biology, chemistry, physics, statistics, and computer science to develop methods and software aimed at helping integrate and understand biological and other data.  

Our guest for this episode is Nikhil Ram Mohan, Staff Scientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He describes bioinformatics as the bridge to understanding biology. We learn about his international studies and path that brought him to this current role and field of study, and then dive into some of his recent work. Here he and his team analyze biobank samples using digital PCR (dPCR) and quantitative PCR (qPCR) and compare results from the two while correlating results with additional data available for each sample to determine if SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection and quantification in blood can serve to help predict potential for patient coinfection. Their work found that dPCR was able to detect SARS-CoV-2 in samples that were negative when evaluated by qPCR and that a series of biomarkers can help predict coinfection.   

We also get to hear a bit of Nikhil’s interesting personal story, which includes his undergraduate engineering studies in India and leaving his native country for the first time when he moved to the U.S. for graduate school.  We learn how he managed changes in culture, what he loves about teaching, and about him being a new father.  

Visit the Absolute Gene-ius page to learn more about the guest, the hosts, and the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Absolute Q Digital PCR System.