Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello! So science fair is approaching for us, and I need to come up with an idea. I wanted to do something which could possibly win this year and make a difference. I came across this project on Science Buddies and thought it'd be cool to try it.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... al#summary

So, I talked to my teacher about it and she said that just looking at the data of the mutations of COVID is basically just doing research, and not really doing an actual project. As a result, she suggested that if I have experience with computer programming, I could possibly build a model of when mutations will occur in the COVID-19 virus, using past data.

If any of you know any good sites where I could find patient data with COVID-19, down to the amino-acid level, I would love to hear it!

Also, if you have any suggestions for this project, or if you have a better idea for how to approach this project, please tell me!

Thank you so much!

Hello,

This sounds like a really cool project idea! What kind of patient data are you looking for specifically? If you're looking for virus sequence data, NCBI virus is probably the best place to look! It's a big database that includes information on the sequence of the virus isolate, where it came from, and when it was collected.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/virus ... id:2697049

Do you have a plan yet on how you're going to do the computer programming? I don't personally know much about computer programming, but if you have any specific questions about that, you can always make a post in the Math and Computer Science forum.

I hope this helps! Feel free to post any other questions that you have as you plan out your project and we'll do our best to help.