MIT’s Ray and Maria Stata Center (Building 32), known for its striking outward appearance, is also designed to foster collaboration among the people inside.
MIT’s Ray and Maria Stata Center (Building 32), known for its striking outward appearance, is also designed to foster collaboration among the people inside. Sitting in the famous building’s amphitheater on a brisk fall day, Kristy Carpenter smiles as she speaks enthusiastically about how interdisciplinary efforts between the fields of computer science and molecular biology are helping accelerate the process of drug discovery and design.
Carpenter, an MIT senior with a joint major in both subjects, said she didn’t want to specialize in only one or the other — it’s the intersection between both disciplines, and the application of that work to improving human health, that she finds compelling.
“For me, to be really fulfilled in my work as a scientist, I want to have some tangible impact,” she says.
Carpenter explains that artificial intelligence, which can help compute the combinations of compounds that would be better for a particular drug, can reduce trial-and-error time and ideally quicken the process of designing new medicines.
Read more at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Image: Kristy Carpenter. CREDIT: Jared Charney
