The Society of Toxicology awarded the Supplemental Training for Education Program (STEP) Award to Sheryse Taylor. With this award Sheryse was able to attend an intensive two-week advanced Sequencing Technologies Course offered by Cold Spring Harbors (CSH) Laboratories. The course is run by multiple instructors (Drs. Obi and Malachi Griffith, Elaine Mardis, W. Richard McCombie, and Aaron Quinlan) and hosts multiple guest lecturers who are experts in their respective fields and also includes an appearance by Dr. James Watson.

This course allowed Sheryse to gain much needed exposure in the field of bioinformatics while she studied the response of pulmonary macrophages to epithelial disruption with a focus on Nitric Oxide metabolism. Sheryse was able to learn both essential laboratory and computer- based aspects of massively parallel sequencing as well as creating a library and using Pacific Biosciences or Illumina for sequencing. The course also provided an opportunity for networking and career development, as instructors, guest lecturers, and course participants were all very willing to provide help during the course. Participation in this course further confirmed to Sheryse that she should delve deeper into the field of bioinformatics to attain her career goals.