Other Biotech News

Beyond this particular experiment, Alexandra Van Pernis and I are in a new Biotechnology class at HPA. In this class we are working with the National Barcode of Life project to help genome every species on Earth. The project is working to classify fish right now, so that is what our Biotech class is working on. So far we have amplified the gDNA in the fish cell samples the program sent us. We have also selected the CO1 barcode gene located in the mitochondria. After we performed gel electrophoresis to ensure we had, in fact, located and isolated the gene (picture below), we sent our samples off to the lab to be sequenced. The next step in our project will be to analyze the completed sequence and publish our findings. Our names will be placed next to the sample for future generations to see. More information on the project itself can be found here: http://www.educationandbarcoding.org/index.php# . Recently, Alexandra and I were featured in West Hawaii Today in an article about our new class, http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-features/biotechnology-class-hpa-first-state-identify-genetic-code-global-genomics .