Alisson
Alisson
Revere High School
Revere, MA
Mentor:
Khalid Shakir
Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research | McCarroll Group
When Alisson applied to the ӳý Summer Scholars Program, she wanted to immerse herself in a project where computational biology could answer big questions about how the human brain changes over time. She joined the McCarroll Lab’s work with the Brain Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN), an ambitious effort to create a detailed atlas of brain cell types and their gene expression patterns at single-cell resolution.
Her project focused on the caudate nucleus, a brain region linked to memory and attention, and how gene expression differs among younger donors aged 25–39. Unlike bulk RNA sequencing, which averages signals across millions of cells, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) preserves the transcriptional diversity of individual cell types. This allowed Alisson to look closely at how aging influences specific populations of cells rather than treating the caudate as a single unit.
After training in R, GitHub, and UNIX-based data tools, Alisson subset BICAN’s vast dataset, performed quality control, and generated visualizations using Tidyverse. Her analyses revealed that aging effects are far from uniform: genes like ROBO2 showed marked expression changes in certain cell types, while others, such as PCDH9, remained stable. These results suggest that developmental aging in the caudate is gene- and cell-type-specific, providing new insight into how brain functions may shift in early adulthood.
Alongside technical skills in data wrangling, visualization, and statistical analysis, Alisson also developed confidence in presenting results and working in a collaborative research environment. Her contributions add to the BICAN atlas, a resource that will guide neuroscientists around the world in studying brain development and disease.
Reflecting on her experience, she said, “Thanks to BSSP I learned how important networking and throwing yourself out there is for your career.” By summer’s end, she had not only advanced a critical atlas-building project but also built the skills and confidence to see herself as a computational biologist making meaningful contributions to neuroscience.
