The advances in genome sequencing technology have led to the generation of massive amounts of publicly available data creating new opportunities for student‐scientist research partnerships. With appropriate training, undergraduate students can provide the labor‐intensive sequence improvement and annotation required for effective use of sequence data. The Genomics Education Partnership (GEP) brings together faculty from over 40 colleges and universities in a collaborative project to provide their students with a research experience in genomics. The first project undertaken by the GEP is the sequence improvement and annotation of the dot chromosomes of several Drosophila species. This unique domain has properties of both euchromatin, including normal gene density, and heterochromatin. Undergraduates improved the posted sequence data to an error rate of less than 1:1000 bp, and generate carefully annotated gene models; the pooled data is being used for analysis of the chromosome as a whole, including comparisons among different Drosophila species. Students appreciate the opportunity to make novel contributions to the scientific database, and that their work will result in a scientific publication. We find that genomics research is a rewarding way for us to teach, and a rewarding way for our students to learn. We are looking for additional schools to join us, and additional partners from the scientific community to pose meaningful annotation problems for the students to tackle. Funded by grants from HHMI and NIH.
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Apr 23, 2009
Ramana Madupu + 4
Open Access
