MDI Biological Laboratory
Bioinformatics

This is Why: Full Circle Stories

  • October 31, 2025
Whether they began here as students, researchers or staff, many discover that the MDI Bio Lab’s sense of curiosity, collaboration and community stays with them. Matthew Cox, Markus Sujansky and Celeste Nobrega share what brought them back — and how working together in the Comparative Genomics and Data Science Core has brought their journeys full circle.

Thank you for taking the time to sit down and chat with me today. The three of you work in the Comparative Genomics and Data Science (CGDS) Core. Can you tell me what bioinformatics is, and what excited you about going into this field?

Matthew Cox:
That’s a great question. I think at the very least bioinformatics is understanding the vagueness of biology in a way that hard science or bench work can’t really get at as easily. There’s still so much that bench work can do, but there are so many things to read and quantify that getting a computational background on that data results in so much more useable information.

Celeste Nobrega:
I think a good way to describe it for me — why I like it — is that there are so many different aspects that we can be a part of. You are involved at all steps of the scientific process, from broad research to identify interesting questions, to designing experiments, and then of course, analyzing and interpreting results from the research. There are a lot of different ways that we can contribute to the science, which also means that there’s always so much to do all the time, and it’s always different. That is why I really, really like it.

Markus Sujansky:
I agree with both of you, but I think the core of what I heard from you guys is that the field we’re in is always changing.

People are always getting more creative. How to take small bits of information from wet bench work and turn it into meaningful results on the computational side. Why do I like it? It’s a big puzzle. And I love the puzzle of trying to figure out how to get an answer that we want or learn how to answer a question in a specific way. It is so interesting.

Let’s discuss the collaboration the three of you have mentioned. The CGDS Core is a foundation, helping to analyze and develop the research of scientists. How is that significant to you and what’s been your experience

Markus:
Sure. I mean, I don’t think any of us would be in this job if we weren’t deeply interested in the research that’s happening or have some sort of connection to this sort of work. There’s a feeling of satisfaction that you’re able to contribute to a larger project with your knowledge and skill set.

Celeste:
On the idea of satisfaction, it’s always exciting when you care about the science and understand the goal, and then you get to be the first person to see the result on your screen. You feel like, “This is a super cool result. I can’t wait to show this to the scientist!” It’s very rewarding to experience those moments and be able to share them with your collaborators.

Matt:
I completely agree with you both. Especially when we’re talking about this creative puzzle that we’re all trying to solve.

Markus:
I think a part of our job that people don’t think about often is just how collaborative we have to be, both within the CGDS Core with each other when we’re working on a problem that we can’t figure out, and with the researchers. We’re reaching across every part of the process.

Each of you started at MDI Bio Lab in a different capacity and with much different stories. Is this sense of excitement and collaboration why you came back? Because you saw that there were these opportunities for solving these “puzzles”?

Celeste:
For me, a big part of it was the educational aspect of MDI Bio Lab because there is such a focus on education and collaboration. I was a Summer Fellow in 2020. After graduating, I worked at an academic institution in this same field. It’s now very clear to me what collaboration for a goal looks like through two different lenses. At MDI Bio Lab, the focus on community is much more aligned with that of my undergraduate experience. We want to share our findings with both our and the larger scientific community. This is why I was so excited to come back — not only am I going to work on interesting science, but I am also going to do it in a collaborative, reproducible way that benefits the whole community.

Matt:
I completely agree. I’ve worked at MDI Bio Lab for almost four years and spent the majority of my time in a wet lab setting. I was drawn to computational biology because of the collaboration and cooperation in the CGDS Core, and because of the amount of data control that an analyst can give a biologist. If there is an error, I can reproduce that mistake instantly with barely any cost in computational biology, where you can’t really make that same mistake in the wet bench setting.

Markus:
I had a very different career path. I was an REU Fellow last year and then started at MDI Bio Lab this summer directly after graduating. I think that speaks to the quality of research happening here — it is all meaningful. I remember as a student, expecting to just be given some “go fetch the coffee” sort of work. But the faculty said, “You’re going to study this, and if you don’t know how to study it, we’ll help you learn.”

I quickly understood that the people here are awesome, and the work is meaningful and intellectually stimulating.
So, why wouldn’t we come back?