Fighting Infectious Diseases with AI-Focused Immersion Vanderbilt Project

Karen Pu, Class of 2024, is expanding the power of computer modeling to identify mutating viruses—and potentially improve vaccines.

Today’s fight against infectious diseases is being waged in the computer lab as much as the wet lab. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, Vanderbilt researchers and students like School of Engineering undergraduate Karen Pu are expanding the power of computer modeling to identify mutating viruses—and potentially improve vaccines.

When the Northern California native started her first year at Vanderbilt, she wanted to jump into biology research. Then COVID restrictions led to a pivot, steering Pu into an exciting area of biomedical research that uses computer coding and artificial intelligence.

This area of study also created opportunities for her to travel across the world and dive into an interdisciplinary Immersion Vanderbilt project.

“Since COVID my freshman year had us spending more time on our computers, I took a Python coding class and thought, ‘Why don’t I try combining my interest in biology with computer science?’” she said.

Pu reached out to the bioinformatics lab of Jens Meiler, Distinguished Research Professor of Chemistry within the College of Arts and Science.

“I saw that the Meiler Lab offered the opportunity to do computational biology research, and it sounded really cool when I read what they were doing with drug discovery and designing proteins,” she said.

Learn more about Karen Pu and her Immersion Vanderbilt project by reading the full, original story written by Amy Wolf here.