miRcore Research Camps for High School Students

The Sequencing Your Genome camp is also open to college students.

Having successfully run online summer camps during the pandemic, miRcore will hold Summer 2026 camps to pursue the best of both virtual and in-person camps. Our online format will allow nationwide reach and participation. Our in-person camps will provide students opportunities to perform experiments and build friendships with other regional students.

Our camps are available for academically motivated high school students (including incoming freshmen). We emphasize discussion in small groups of five or six campers, each group supported by its own teaching assistant throughout the camp. A unique feature of our camps is that students will be eligible to continue their learning experience with the miRcore Volunteer Program, which meets throughout the school year online and in person (optional). MVP students continue learning about computational biology research, programming, teamwork, community outreach, and leadership (including founding/leading GIDAS club).

See our Summer Camp FAQ page for more information.

Audrey G.

Thank you so much for your letters of rec, as well as mentorship, guidance, and love over the years. I am so incredibly grateful for my experiences in miRcore, both as a student and as a leader. I am especially grateful to have met and worked with you. More than just a mentor, you are a friend and inspiration to me. I rely on the skills I learned from you and miRcore every day, and I also know that I could not be where I am today without miRcore ….

Audrey profile

● 2-year MVP member, then Chair of the GIDAS Support Committee
● Supported miRcore programs as a Harvard undergraduate
● Supporting miRcore programs as a current medical student at Harvard

Karthik R.

Marianne C.

Summer Camps Offered in 2026

New for 2026 BTS and SYG camps: students will learn to use machine learning packages for their research projects as an introducction to AI in medicine. In BTS, they will predict whether samples are from COVID19 or flu patients. In the 3rd module of SYG, they will use their sequencing data to predict their ABO blood types.

If you are taking multiple camps, you pay only one application fee. Please use the same transaction id on multiple camp application forms. For additional questions, please email us at camp@mircore.org.

Computational Biology (CB) Research Camps

Session 1 (University of Michigan or Virtual): June 15 – June 19, 2026

Session 2 (University of Michigan or Virtual): July 6 – July 10, 2026

Session 3 (Scripps Research Institute or Virtual): July 27 – July 31, 2026

Transcriptome research with patient RNA expression data using tools currently used by scientists.

The miRcore volunteer program research is based on the CB camp materials, so taking this camp is one of requirements if you want to become a miRcore volunteer and lead a school club GIDAS (Genes in Diseases and Symptoms).

Advanced Computational Biology (ACB) Camp

Date: June 22 – June 26, 2026

Location: University of Michigan or Virtual

We recommend taking a CB camp beforehand if possible.

The Advanced Computational Biology Camp (previously known as the R Programming Camp) provides essential tools and datasets with which students can develop their own research projects. Students will learn TCGA big data analysis using microRNA sequencing data of cancer patients for RNA biomarker analysis, tumor prediction using machine learning tools, and graph generation.

Biotechnology Sequencing (BTS) Camps

Date: July 13 – July 17, 2026

Location: University of Michigan or Virtual

We recommend taking a CB camp beforehand if possible.

Develop a startup idea based on your research using Next Generation Sequencing Data Analysis

The Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering (MICDE) has provided access to the University of Michigan’s high performance computing system Great Lakes Slurm cluster for all BTS campers to run calculations in a Linux environment.

Sequencing Your Genome Camps

Total 3 weeks

Module 1: CB in-person preferred (Any camp okay)

Module 2: BTS (Date: July 13 – July 17, 2026)

Module 3: Analyzing your genome data (Date: August 3 – August 7, 2026 at Scripps Research Translational Institute or Virtual)

After their genome has been sequenced, students will be given access to a Linux cluster to do computational self-data analysis for one year (for non-medical research purposes only). Each student will be the sole custodian of their genomic data. Age: 16+ on the first day of Module 3 session. Both parental and student consent is needed. College students are also welcome.