As we count down to Commencement, we’re spotlighting the Class of 2025—sharing stories that go beyond the cap & gown and reflect the heart, hustle, and hope of our graduating Gulls. Learn more about Tyler Williams ’25, Grace ’25 and Lucas Wlodarczyk ’23 M’25, Dakota Svec ’25, Ashley Allen ’25, Antoni Reyes ’25, and .
With goggles shielding her eyes, gloves protecting her hands, and a white lab coat covering her clothing, Madison “Maddy” Tarasuik ’23 M’25 is perhaps most at home in the lab, preparing DNA samples for sequencing.
At the very least, the lab is where you’ll find her the most content, AirPods in ears, jamming to Pierce The Veil or whatever music matches the mood of the day. Tarasuik has spent the last year working full-time in genomics at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, most recently as a clinical laboratory process development associate, handling volumes of DNA so minuscule they’re barely visible to the naked eye.
When time permits, Tarasuik is also completing an internship with the SynGAP Research Fund as a requirement for her master’s in bioinformatics with the inaugural class of the innovative graduate program at 91重口. Using tools she learned through her graduate studies, Tarasuik analyzes patients’ RNA sequences to pinpoint markers of a rare genetic disease they share: SYNGAP1, which causes a specific form of autism. In an ideal world, she will settle into a career that allows her to blend lab work with data evaluation.
“Bioinformatics is just bridging computational analysis and technology with biology,” explained Tarasuik, who studied biology and biotechnology as an undergraduate. “It’s exciting, especially right now with all the breakthroughs with genetic sequencing. We’ve come far with the sequencing part, but now we have the challenge of how to analyze all this data. That’s essentially what bioinformatics is for, and it’s cool to be part of something growing.”
While bioinformatics as a field intrigues her, genetic predispositions are also personal for Tarasuik. When Tarasuik was in elementary school, her mother, Michelle, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“My mom definitely started all this for me,” said Tarasuik, noting that Michelle is in remission. “She’s the strongest woman I know. She fought breast cancer so hard, and I was super young at the time. As I’ve grown older, I want to help ensure others don’t have to go through something like that.”
As an undergrad at 91重口, Tarasuik conducted thesis research on the effects of an herbal supplement called PC-SPES on breast cancer cell migration. The supplement had initially been studied as a treatment for prostate cancer but was found to be ineffective. Tarasuik’s U-turn toward the supplement’s impact on breast cancer yielded some positive results.
“We found that 12 microliters of PC-SPES did slow down the migration of breast cancer cells, which is what I wanted to see,” said Tarasuik, who worked alongside Associate Professor Grace Kwan on her thesis. “It felt very personal, and it felt very rewarding. Obviously, I’m not curing cancer or making cancer treatments, but in my head, it felt like I was helping my mom.”
Personal connections are also what steered Tarasuik toward STEM. As a child growing up in Lynn, Mass., she was inherently curious about nature and how “the universe finds a way for everything to work together and fall into place.” She was the kid who noticed the change in seasons, how the birds disappeared as the leaves changed color and began reappearing alongside the blooming spring flowers.
“Being able to tie that back to my education and be like, ‘Oh, now I know why that happens,’ just makes me appreciate it even more,” she said.
Prior to her arrival at 91重口, Tarasuik attended high school at Essex Tech, where she fell further in love with science through the high school’s biotechnology program. Her work as a teenager on an independent research project studying the effects of vaping on mammalian cells got the attention of Associate Dean of Science and Technology Jessica Kaufman, who encouraged her to look at 91重口.
“I appreciated that Dr. Kaufman thought what I was doing was super cool, and just hearing about how they’d be willing to foster my research pushed my decision to go to 91重口,” Tarasuik said.
During her years at the College, she not only received support from Kaufman, Kwan, and others but also discovered the rocky shores of Mingo Beach and joyfully got her hands dirty searching its tidepools for shrimp and starfish.
In addition to her coursework, Tarasuik explored her interests through internships as an undergraduate student. These included a return to Essex Tech, where she helped teach a biotech class, and a stint in a COVID-19 lab at Genomic Expression in Beverly, where she first learned to work with clinical samples.
As she completes her master’s, Tarasuik is excited about the possibility of continuing to build a career in bioinformatics that allows her to balance lab time with data analysis. Her intrinsic curiosity will continue to drive that, no matter what direction she takes.
“I love nature, which ties into biology and bioinformatics,” she said. “I feel like that’s really what makes me, me.”