Ramapo College Bioinformatics Program

Members of the Ramapo Science Journal Club, Spring 2026.
We enjoyed an outstanding semester filled with lively discussions and exploration of cutting-edge scientific research.
The Ramapo Science Journal Club's mission is to promote awareness of recent advances in scientific research. At weekly meetings, students lead presentations and engage in critical evaluation and in-depth discussion of pre-assigned articles published within the past six months in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
This spring, discussions covered a range of hot topics, including CAR-T therapy, autism spectrum disorder, RNA nanostructures, chronic stress, the role of the gut microbiome in osteoporosis, and apoptosis induction in breast carcinomas.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-protein-folding-ai-vastly-expands-on-alphafolds-efforts/

New protein-folding AI vastly expands on Alphafold's efforts The new open-source atlas, generated by an AI tool called ESMFold2, vastly increases the known protein universe

AI Foundation Model Maps Tumor Mutations to Predict Cancer Therapy Response MutationProjector uses AI foundation modeling to predict cancer therapy response and interpret complex tumor mutation patterns across cancers.

Microbiome Therapy Could Help Drug-Resistant Melanoma Patients A microbiome pill could help patients with melanoma who do not respond to checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy to overcome this resistance.

How Gut Bacteria Apply Reversible Epigenetic “Bet-Hedging” Strategy to Adapt to Change Researchers say epigenetic phase variation mechanism may explain microbiome resilience and variability and could guide the next generation of probiotics.

Organ-on-Chip Method Designed to Zero In on Connection Between Diabetes and Dementia GlucoBrain was established to help researchers understand exactly how diseases like diabetes and dementia work at a deeper, biological level.

Could AI Surpass Doctors at Clinical Reasoning? Large language models meet or even exceed the abilities of physicians in diagnosis and patient management tasks and “have now eclipsed most benchmarks of clinical reasoning,” researchers report.

Ramapo College undergraduate Bioinformatics Program was recently highlighted!

One of my favorite quote in this article:
“Faculty say the program’s strength comes from its interdisciplinary foundation, the cornerstone of Ramapo’s liberal arts curriculum.”

Decoding the Future of Health A bioinformatics degree at Ramapo College combines biology and computer science through hands-on research, preparing students for graduate study and biotechnology careers.

Another example of drug repurposing

Diabetes Drug Mimics Benefits of Exercise in Prostate Cancer Patients Metformin was found to increase levels of N-lactoyl-phenylalanine (Lac-Phe) in prostate cancer patients whose movement may be limited.