![\"image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/milit-vertical-lab-WP-240x300.png\")
Patel in the Virtual Cures lab within the Freshman Research Initiative. Photo by Jennifer Irving<\/p>\nMilit Patel stepped foot on the Forty Acres as an introvert. At orientation, the only person he talked to was his adviser. Coming to The University of Texas at Austin with big scientific ambitions, Patel was worried he would fall prey to lots of independent time working in the lab, and he knew he needed to push himself out of his comfort zone to meet new people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to my first class, and I sat next to two people that I didn\u2019t know. And then by the end of the class, I was friends with both of them. That changed some type of chemistry in my brain,\u201d said Patel. \u201cHonestly, I was just like, \u2018Oh, I need to start making more friends. This is just an amazing feeling.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In his first year, Patel was part of the Freshman Research Initiative, a program in the College of Natural Sciences that provides early access to supported intra-curricular research experiences for undergraduate students. As a student in Josh Beckham\u2019s Virtual Cures lab, he gained experience in wet-lab and computational approaches to protein modeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I didn\u2019t know if I would like research,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought that it was going to be such a solo, siloed environment where I\u2019m just doing lab experiments at like 9 p.m. on a Monday night. But it was so much more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patel in the Virtual Cures lab within the Freshman Research Initiative. Photo by Jennifer Irving<\/p>\n
What he once thought of as an isolated experience ended up being the place where he met many of his closest friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the social aspect of research that changed it for me,\u201d Patel said. \u201cWhether that\u2019s between lab meetings or just working with my peers within the lab, I think that\u2019s made it such a fun experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four years later, Patel has spent countless hours in the lab. The biochemistry major worked as a researcher in Jeanne Kowalski-Muegge\u2019s cancer clinical genomics lab at Dell Medical School. His favorite project he\u2019s worked on in the lab leveraged computational methods and artificial intelligence for oncology research.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year<\/a>, Patel was lead researcher on a paper published<\/a> in one of the world\u2019s most-cited cancer journals, Annals of Oncology, for his research on using machine learning to reveal the most important drivers of cancer survival in countries across the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n After graduating in May as a Dean\u2019s Honored Graduate with Distinction in Research, Patel plans to work at an AI-native biotech company that he co-founded. Throughout his time as a Longhorn, he has become an accomplished researcher, but the friendships he has made here are what help him stay motivated.<\/p>\n \u201cAll my friends truly just ground my research,\u201d Patel said. \u201cCancer is such a widespread disease. The fact that that might be someone in my circles in the future, and I could be able to potentially help people that I love. It\u2019s just something that makes me feel great inside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Milit Patel stepped foot on the Forty Acres as an introvert. At orientation, the only person he talked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,52316,3618,13177,9535,584,36102,14172,858,2220,25719,1049,3621,2459],"class_list":["post-354896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-class-of-2026","tag-college-of-natural-sciences","tag-dell-medical-school","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-health","tag-launching-leaders","tag-life-sciences","tag-research","tag-science","tag-statewide-impact","tag-students","tag-technology","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}