Haleigh Schwartz

The beginning of my journey in medicine began when I was very young. After witnessing several members of my family decline due to Alzheimer’s and various cancers, I became passionate about helping others like them. Years later, I began college and met a life-long friend. My friend is burdened with multiple incurable diseases, and during my time living with her, I had an intimate view of what it is like to truly suffer and battle through healthcare’s inefficient and harmful systems.

Throughout this same time, I held various medical positions. As I witnessed people lie miserably in hospital beds while we “treated” them, I was reminded of my loved ones. I knew there had to be a better way to provide proper medical care, and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining how to do so.

Outside of the hospital, I worked towards another passion: research. Through various opportunities in college, I realized how much I enjoyed translational research and began working at Oregon Health and Science University’s neuroscience institute after graduation. While there, my favorite task was analyzing my experimental data. I thrived once my experiments were complete, giving me the chance to find the story hidden beneath the numbers and organize it into clear figures. By working with data, I discovered that numbers and figures help to show the big picture, and oftentimes make plain to us what once was a mystery.

Combined, my experiences showed me that one way to address the underlying issues residing in healthcare- and the avenue I am most excited about- is through data. Because of this, I decided to end my pursuit of medicine and instead become a data scientist. My story prepared me in such a way as to give me a clear mission for work, an insider’s perspective of the problems I seek to solve, and a heart dedicated to serving those in need. The answers to the world’s most pressing issues in healthcare are out there; I am convinced the secrets lie in data, and I am thrilled to be searching for them.

Explore my site and see what I have been up to in the worlds of data, medicine, and science. 😊

selected publications

J Virol
Rewiring of the Host Cell Metabolome and Lipidome during Lytic Gammaherpesvirus Infection Is Essential for Infectious-Virus Production

Sarah A. Clark, Angie Vazquez, Kelsey Furiya, and 11 more authors

Journal of Virology, May 2023

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Oncogenic virus infections are estimated to cause 15% of all cancers. Two prevalent human oncogenic viruses are members of the gammaherpesvirus family: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Kaposi’s sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV). We use murine herpesvirus 68 (MHV-68), which shares significant homology with KSHV and EBV, as a model system to study gammaherpesvirus lytic replication. Viruses implement distinct metabolic programs to support their life cycle, such as increasing the supply of lipids, amino acids, and nucleotide materials necessary to replicate. Our data define the global changes in the host cell metabolome and lipidome during gammaherpesvirus lytic replication. Our metabolomics analysis found that MHV-68 lytic infection induces glycolysis, glutaminolysis, lipid metabolism, and nucleotide metabolism. We additionally observed an increase in glutamine consumption and glutamine dehydrogenase protein expression. While both glucose and glutamine starvation of host cells decreased viral titers, glutamine starvation led to a greater loss in virion production. Our lipidomics analysis revealed a peak in triacylglycerides early during infection and an increase in free fatty acids and diacylglyceride later in the viral life cycle. Furthermore, we observed an increase in the protein expression of multiple lipogenic enzymes during infection. Interestingly, pharmacological inhibitors of glycolysis or lipogenesis resulted in decreased infectious virus production. Taken together, these results illustrate the global alterations in host cell metabolism during lytic gammaherpesvirus infection, establish essential pathways for viral production, and recommend targeted mechanisms to block viral spread and treat viral induced tumors.
@article{jvi.00506-23, title = {Rewiring of the Host Cell Metabolome and Lipidome during Lytic Gammaherpesvirus Infection Is Essential for Infectious-Virus Production}, author = {Clark, Sarah A. and Vazquez, Angie and Furiya, Kelsey and Splattstoesser, Madeleine K. and Bashmail, Abdullah K. and Schwartz, Haleigh and Russell, Makaiya and Bhark, Shun-Je and Moreno, Osvaldo K. and McGovern, Morgan and Owsley, Eric R. and Nelson, Timothy A. and Sanchez, Erica L. and Delgado, Tracie}, journal = {Journal of Virology}, volume = {97}, issue = {6}, pages = {e00506-23}, year = {2023}, month = may, publisher = {American Society for Microbiology}, doi = {10.1128/jvi.00506-23}, url = {https://journals.asm.org/doi/abs/10.1128/jvi.00506-23}, dimensions = {true}, }