Computing Catalyst: Cracking the Code of Mosquito-Borne Disease
Baylor Associate Professor of Biology Tamar Carter is an expert in Tropical Disease Biology who explores the global health threat of vector-borne diseases spread specifically by mosquitoes. Her lab is filled with a compassionate search for helping human flourishing through addressing disease.
“Our lab is kind of in the intersection between genomics and vector biology,” Carter stated. “We’re centered on using genomic data to track vector-borne disease phenomena.” Carter and her team of students are working to understand invasive mosquito populations by reconstructing their history and origin. “Our initial work didn’t require a lot of computational intensity.”
However, as the research grew and collaborators joined beyond Baylor, Dr. Carter and her team received more and more data that required higher computational processing power. “We really want to delve into ‘How are these mosquitoes adapting?' That requires more sequencing and a more intensive sequencing approach. In the last two years, we’ve been generating a lot more genome sequence data.”
During our visit to Dr. Carter’s lab, we had the pleasure of meeting two of her students, Elizabeth Waymire and Isuru Gunarathna, who assist in Dr. Carter’s research. When it comes to working with Baylor’s own High-Performance Computing System, Kodiak, “They’re the bread and butter,” Dr. Carter said of her students. “There’s just a lot of troubleshooting that has to go in, and as a PI [principal investigator], it’s hard to put in the time and effort in figuring all of that out.” Dr. Carter continued, “They’re [Baylor Students] at the forefront of it (that is, research in Kodiak). They’re the ones doing the work.”
Isuru Gunarathna, one of Dr. Carter’s students, when asked about how Kodiak comes into play for the research projects under Dr. Carter had this to say. “Without Kodiak, we couldn’t do the work. I feel like it’s given us a platform to do the high-level computing.” Gunarathna went on further to detail the benefits Kodiak provided through data storage availability and computing power. “In one file, it is a mosquito genome, in another, it could become 10 GigaBytes (GB) of data. Then we perform another set of analysis. After each analysis, we have an output file, which could be another 10 GB. We need a lot of processing power as well as storage facilities. Kodiak is the only place that we can get that at Baylor, so we’re glad that we have it for free.”
Kodiak plays a major role in Dr. Carter’s research from start to finish. When asked what percentage of the research process involves working with Kodiak, Gunarathna answered, “Ninety-five percent.” He continued, “Most of the time, I will be working with Kodiak when it comes to data analysis, writing, and the visualization of the data.”
Analyzing and compiling the data in this research is no small feat for Dr. Carter and her students. Oftentimes, they are working with long stretches of characters that number in the millions. All of this work is aided by Kodiak, and comes together to produce outputs that will have widespread health benefits across the globe, supporting Baylor In Deeds – Commitment II, Strategy 2: Cultivating research strength in areas focused on human health.
Dr. Carter explained, “We’re taking a very broad approach, and that allows us to potentially identify new loci (a specific, fixed position on a chromosome where a particular gene or genetic marker is located) that haven’t been identified before. New genes that other people haven’t identified that might be relevant for resistance.”
Dr. Carter’s work is a powerful reminder of how research technology and human curiosity come together to make a global impact. With Kodiak powering the heavy computational demands of her lab, she and her students are advancing discoveries that have the potential to save lives and improve health outcomes worldwide. Her success shows how Baylor researchers can leverage cutting-edge tools to push the boundaries of knowledge, while also training the next generation of scientific leaders. As Dr. Carter’s journey demonstrates, research technology is not just a support system—it is a catalyst for innovation, collaboration, and human flourishing.
To step into your Research Technology journey, visit the Baylor University – ITS Research Technology web page or contact research_technology@baylor.edu.