Growing up Arab-Israeli outside of Tel Aviv, Israel, Ahmad Bishara ’25 became naturally adept at languages to communicate with people of different backgrounds.
By the time he graduated high school, Bishara was fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and English and had also learned to code in C#, Java, JavaScript, and HTML. When he wasn't studying or working a retail job to save up for college, Bishara mastered video games and taught kids with disabilities in his community how to play chess—a game he played competitively.
In the Israeli high school system, students must declare a major, and Bishara’s was computer science. Given the rise in demand for cybersecurity experts and the many successful startups in the country, studying computer science and becoming a software engineer seemed like a natural next step.
Bishara came to Endicott to gain a degree and valuable work experience, but he never imagined that college would also involve applying his academic knowledge and skills to improve children’s lives.
However, through Nest connections, he received a fall 2024 internship with the SynGAP Research Fund, which expanded his perspective and paved the way for his future.
“Choosing Endicott from so far away without first visiting the school or even the United States was a gamble—but it turned out to be a great experience because people at the College really went out of their way to provide me with opportunities to learn and work,” Bishara said.
That began with International Student Orientation on campus the week before classes began, where he learned how to navigate registration, set up a residence hall room, and take public transportation, all while making new friendships.
“Adjusting to a new culture was hard at first,” he admitted. “It helped when I reminded myself that learning about something new was why I chose to come here.”
He quickly found his people by playing pickup soccer and chess, speaking up, and excelling in his computer science classes.
His first internship involved helping a startup build its e-commerce website. He enjoyed the experience but wanted to work in a more demanding role. “I am into software engineering because it’s about seeing a problem and fixing it. It’s about being innovative and creative,” he said.
Unfortunately, when it came time for his capstone internship, all the positions that fit the bill required five years of work experience. That’s when Bishara’s advisor, Associate Professor of Computer Science Hank Feild, introduced him to Jessica Kaufman, Associate Dean of Science and Technology.
The connection was meant to be.
Kaufman offered Bishara the perfect opportunity to use his skills to make a difference with a project for the SynGAP Research Fund. Run by families with children suffering from the rare genetic disease, the organization works to improve the lives of kids living with SYNGAP1-related disorders through research and development of treatments, therapies, and support systems.
For Kaufman, it’s personal.
Her seven-year-old niece, Hadley, lives with SYNGAP1, and Hadley’s mom, Emily Barnes, volunteers on the fund’s board of trustees. Because Hadley was diagnosed as a toddler, she received early interventions that have been instrumental in helping her to thrive as a first-grader in an integrated classroom. Today, Hadley reads, writes, and even tells stories at the dinner table.
But even with all of this support, her disease doesn’t yet have a cure, much less a treatment.
“SYNGAP1 is a rare dominant de novo genetic condition that is not inherited and has only been diagnosed in fewer than 2,000 individuals so far,” Kaufman said.
There are many different mutations, but a variation in the SYNGAP1 gene causes every case of the disease. Symptoms include epilepsy, intellectual disabilities, and autism and develop over time. The SYNGAP1 gene is located on Chromosome 6, which produces the SYNGAP protein in the brain—those with less protein have challenges in learning and seizure activity, leading to neurological challenges.
An open-source tool that can make a difference
Kaufman and Bishara were tasked with solving the problem of creating an interactive tool for researchers to learn the availability of research assets associated with different variants that cause SYNGAP1-related disorders. Up until that point, the organization’s chief scientific officer, molecular biologist, and mother of a SYNGAP1 son, Dr. Kathryn Helde, collected all of this data on a single Excel spreadsheet.
Bishara was willing to take on the challenge, but first, he had to learn R, a new programming language.
He taught himself to code in a matter of weeks using YouTube videos and then, over the next two months, created a searchable, visually simple genome browser that integrates with a popular open-source genome operated out of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in nearby Cambridge, Mass.
Now, with Bishara’s tool, important publicly accessible information about SYNGAP1 in medical journals or research studies is easily located in one place and free for families and researchers to locate and access.
Kaufman explained, “Once families receive a diagnosis about their child's phenotype, they can look up that information in the tool and learn how many patients have the exact same mutation.”
Hadley is just one of six globally known children with her unique mutation.
“The hope is that all of these versions of the disease entered into Ahmad’s browser can be treated with the same cure,” Kaufman said. “All of these kids have one broken copy of the gene and one working copy. What if researchers could use this data to develop a treatment that can turn up the volume of the working copy to make up for the missing protein?”
Presenting research and making connections at a conference
It’s unusual for undergraduate researchers to get the chance to present their work at conferences, but that’s precisely what Bishara was able to do at the 2024 SYNGAP Conference in December in Los Angeles.
He watched as Dr. Helde introduced the tool on stage, and then he shared a poster about the research with academics, physicians, researchers, and families.
“I made so many connections there,” Bishara said, smiling. “From the time I was a kid, I always imagined attending conferences, presenting my research, and connecting with people worldwide. I never thought it would happen to me while I was still in college.”
What meant the most was meeting the children living with SYNGAP1 themselves, seeing the faces behind each phenotype he’d painstakingly entered into the tool, and understanding why finding a cure is urgent.
The funds for sending Bishara to the conference were made possible through a generous Giving Day gift from Endicott Trustee Ravi Vig, who said, “Ahmad’s journey is a perfect example of how hands-on learning can unlock potential and create real-world impact. Supporting opportunities like this ensures that students gain critical skills and the confidence to apply them in meaningful ways. Seeing a student like Ahmad use his talents to make a difference in the lives of others is exactly why I believe in the power of experiential education at Endicott.”
Since his first year at Endicott, Bishara had planned to attend graduate school in the U.S., but the internship clarified the next steps and made his application stand out. In the fall, he’ll start his MS in software engineering systems at Northeastern University.
“Technology is everywhere now,” Bishara said. “If the opportunity is there, I would love to build additional tools to help find a cure for SYNGAP1 or other causes in the future.”
Meanwhile, back at the Nest, Kaufman and her students plan to continue supporting the SYNGAP Research Fund with a second round of research conducted this spring by two graduate students in the new MS in Bioinformatics program: Jourdan Hourican ’25 and Madison Tarasuik ’25. They will both graduate this May.