Hillary Elrick, PhD student

“When it came time for me to apply for PhD positions, EMBL-EBI was top of my list because I knew in terms of bioinformatics, I would learn a lot here.”

Cancer genomes are large and complex landscapes to navigate with many variations between patients. Hillary Elrick joined Isidro Cortes Ciriano’s group at EMBL-EBI to start her PhD project looking at new bioinformatics applications to unpick some of these challenges in cancer genomics. We found out about her experience of applying to the EMBL International PhD Programme and how she is using cutting-edge long read sequencing technologies to better understand cancer genomes. 

What is the topic of your PhD project?

I apply long read sequencing technologies to cancer genomics. Short read technologies give you sequence information in lengths of around 500 base pairs and this makes it difficult to accurately identify large structural variations within the cancer genome. I work with data from Oxford Nanopore sequencers and the read length I get from these data is typically well into the thousands of base pairs. This helps me resolve structural variants in the cancer genome.

It can be challenging; most existing bioinformatics tools are designed for short reads and don’t always work with long read data. This is why I am also working on developing my own tools that are compatible with long read data.

Why did you choose EMBL-EBI?

I started working in bioinformatics after my Bachelor’s degree and I used Ensembl during this time. I wanted to find out more about the organisation behind Ensembl and this led me to discover the EMBL International PhD Programme. When it came time for me to apply for PhD positions, EMBL-EBI was top of my list because I knew in terms of bioinformatics, I would learn a lot here.

What was the interview process like for the PhD Programme?

I’m from Canada and I also interviewed during the pandemic so instead of being flown out I did everything via Zoom. Everyone at EMBL-EBI was really accommodating; they made sure my interviews were scheduled with the time difference in mind, which I appreciate because I’m sure it would have made things difficult to schedule everyone involved.

What is your background?

I did an undergraduate degree in biomedical computing at Queen’s University, Ontario. After my Bachelor’s, I knew I wanted to do bioinformatics, but I didn’t know if I wanted to do a PhD so I started working at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute in Toronto. Here I got to work on both mouse and human bioinformatics projects looking at rare diseases. I also did some single-cell sequencing analyses in cancer samples. My time here gave me a lot of different bioinformatics experiences.

What is your advice for someone who wants to do a PhD at EMBL-EBI?

I found it useful to think of some projects I’d be interested in doing. For example, I knew I wanted to work with new technologies; either single-cell or long read technologies. I tailored my application towards research using these and this helped me feel prepared to answer questions about my research interests. Also, I would say to just relax and enjoy the process because it’s really easy and seamless and this made me feel confident in my decision to join EMBL-EBI. I got lots of time to talk with different groups and get a good idea of the science that’s going on.

Find out more about the EMBL International PhD Programme including upcoming application deadlines. You can also find out more about life at EMBL-EBI and the research topics we have on offer. 

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