Titilope Akinwe

Titi was born in Nigeria, but has called Georgia home since the age of three. She earned a B.S. in Neuroscience with a pre-med concentration, and  upon graduation, had research experiences within computational neuroscience and bioinformatics under her belt. She decided to join the OGR program, because she wanted to develop her skills further in translational bioinformatics and learn more about the field of genomics. Beyond research, she believes the professional development offered from a top institution like WashU would be invaluable for preparing her for graduate school. Titi is currently pursuing her PhD at Washington School of Medicine.

Research Area

Titi’s research topic focused on using the Clustering by Mutation Position (CLUMP) algorithm to identify clusters of missense de novo variants beyond a domain approach. The algorithm makes no a priori assumptions about the importance of mutation positions in the context of protein domains or the number of clusters. After generating CLUMP results, we can visualize the clusters and compare them to previously mapped protein domains and regions to determine the functional relevance of significantly clustered variants in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders.