As a Bachelor of Commerce student with skills in economics and statistics, student Josh Golshevsky was unfamiliar with the world of genomics and biotechnology. A deep curiosity to learn and challenge himself in an area outside of his regular field of interest led him to apply for an internship with The Advanced Genomics Collaboration.

Josh worked on the TAGC supported ID Predict project, which focuses on predicting the severity of COVID-19 infection using genomic sequencing, multi-omics datasets and machine learning.

He applied his business skills to researching competition in the field, and mapped out what a commercialised product of this project might look like.

“Starting with very limited knowledge of genomics, multi-omics or machine learning, I was really taken by the exciting challenge of applying my skills to entirely foreign subject matter,” Josh said.

“Delving into the details of the project forced me to step up my research skills, pushing me to search for new approaches to tasks such as market analysis and surveying the competition.”

“My research into the current state of play in the genomics industry showed me that The Advanced Genomics Collaboration really is operating at the frontier of this incredibly innovative technology. At first, I was a little shocked to discover I was contributing to groundbreaking biomedical research, but I was also incredibly excited to be working in such a forward-thinking, future-focused team of people.”

Through his work on the ID Predict project, Josh has become intrigued by the endless applications of machine learning across all fields. He aspires to further his studies in statistics by moving into studying Data Science in the future.