Student Profiles

Byron Roberts

From Bedside to Bench...

Byron Roberts has followed an unusual path, having worked as a paramedic during his undergraduate years. However, during his junior year, he realized that he wanted to make his contributions to medicine through research rather than the clinic.

“I originally intended to go to medical school, but shortly after I began participating in undergraduate research, I realized that I loved the discoveries that go along with a career in research. I decided that I wanted to make an impact in medicine through scientific advances.”

While at the University of California, Davis, Byron did research studying mitotic spindle defects during early C. elegans development. After graduating with a B.S. in Genetics in 2003, he took a postgraduate research position in a brain cancer lab at the School of Veterinary Medicine. “My scientific interests are strongly motivated by my past experiences in medicine. Gliomas are still a significant problem, so engaging in this type of research was satisfying for me.”

As a result of his research at UC Davis, Byron became increasingly interested in genomics, network biology, and other problems that would clearly require computational approaches. “So when I started applying to grad programs, I looked for those that allow me to acquire the computational and mathematical skills that I needed.” Byron joined CBM in 2005, and found the flexibility offered in the program to be extremely beneficial. “This program allowed me to choose what classes would be the best for me including courses in the Computer Science, Applied Math, and Physics departments. I had the freedom to choose the classes that were most appropriate for me to make up for what I thought were some of my biggest weaknesses.”

Byron is currently a student in David Christini’s lab, using mathematical models to better understand the mechanisms by which ischemia-reperfusion arrhythmias arise, and how they might better be treated. “When I was a paramedic, treating arrhythmias were among the most important things I could do for a patient. It’s been fascinating learning about what causes them to occur in a detailed way.”