Profile

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Jeremy Schwartzentruber

My CV

  • Education:

    I went to a not-so-great secondary school in Canada, but at least I could ride my bike there. Because I liked learning, in my final year I left a block free and learned a whole course on my own from books, and also did some “advanced placement” tests, so that I could skip a couple of classes in University.
    I went to the University in my hometown (Victoria, Canada), and I had no idea what I wanted to “be” at the start. But I enjoyed programming computers and I stuck with that. I did 3 different work placements for a total of 1.5 years during my bachelor’s degree.
    I didn’t go straight on to more school, but I worked as a programmer for a few years first. Finally I went back to school and studied more biology and chemistry. Eventually I came to the U.K. and did a PhD in human genetics in Cambridge.

  • Qualifications:

    In Canada, you take placement exams only in your final year (12th grade). I got top marks in most subjects, which helped me to get scholarships for university. Throughout my bachelor’s degree I got more than $20,000 in scholarships, so I even saved money then.

  • Work History:

    Wendy’s burger place – I got fired after 3 shifts!
    AAA salvage – cleaning up old construction site and shop
    SuperSave gas – night shift
    Computer programmer – during university
    Computer programmer – during uni, Power measurement company
    Computer programmer – during uni, SoftQuad web software
    Bachelor of Science, Computer Science, Victoria, Canada
    Computer programmer – RealNetworks, Seattle, USA
    Computer programmer – HealthETech, Denver, USA
    Computer programmer – Action Engine mobile phone, Seattle, USA
    Master of Science, Chemistry, McGill University, Canada
    Bioinformatics – McGill University genome centre, Montreal, Canada
    Bioinformatics – Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
    PhD – Sanger Institute, University of Cambridge, UK

  • Current Job:

    Postdoctoral researcher, European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge, UK

  • About Me:

    I’ve loved learning since I was young, and genetics is a field where we are making new (and sometimes surprising) discoveries all the time.

  • Read more

    I work for the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge, but I live in Cornwall 350 miles away! How? All of my work can be done from home, logging in to the computers in Cambridge to analyse genetic data. I have worked in many places in the past – Canada, the USA, India, and now the UK.

    Being here means that I can take my 2 kids down to the beach, just a 5-minute walk away. I think there is a big need for people with computer and math skills, and there will be lots of opportunities to work remotely like this in the future.

     

  • Read more

    I am trying to understand how our genes can make some people more or less likely to get specific diseases, like Alzheimer’s disease. This disease is especially sad because lots of very old people lose their memory and get confused, but there isn’t a single effective treatment for it yet! Scientists have done studies where they compare DNA between people with Alzheimer’s and people without the disease. This is great, but it only gives us a blurry picture of which genes might be important, and how.

    To go further we need to use more information, such as – what genes are turned on in different types of cells in the brain? There are neurons, but also lots of other cells, like astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia. By putting together lots of bits of information using computer programming and statistics, we can get a clearer picture of what some of these genes are doing.

  • My Typical Day:

    Wake up —
    Drink coffee —
    Warm up my computer (the ON button) —
    Put on some music —
    Start programming again! —
    Hopefully make some nice plots with new data

  • Read more

    Sometimes I need to work with scientists who do actual experiments, and then I travel to the “genome campus”, with some fancy building surrounded by beautiful fields.

    But most of the time, I can do all my work from my home in Cornwall. All that’s needed: a computer, coffee, and some music.

    Doing computer programming to analyse genetic data can sometimes take minutes, but often takes days. You need to read scientific papers to understand what techniques might be needed, and then adapt it to your own problem. The “raw” data is often just a sequence of DNA letters. So it often takes a series of steps to go from this to something that is meaningful, like showing that one gene makes you more or less likely to get a disease.

  • What I'd do with the prize money:

    I don’t need to win a prize. I think I would give it away to someone who needs props and demos to share their science!

  • My Interview

    • How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

      curious, energetic, thoughtful

      What did you want to be after you left school?

      I really didn't know!

      Were you ever in trouble at school?

      Once, I made up my own assignment instead of doing the teacher's one. I wrote a good essay too, but the teacher didn't like me doing something completely different.

      Who is your favourite singer or band?

      Walk off the Earth

      What's your favourite food?

      Thai curry

      If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

      Spend less time working and more time learning (kids are so lucky!); learn to play guitar; hike up another big mountain.

      Tell us a joke.

      What do you call a dinosaur with one eye? A Dyouthinkhesaurus.

Questions answered by Jeremy

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