COSAM News Articles 2021 July Biological Sciences workshop offers hands-on opportunity to learn new method of DNA sequencing

Biological Sciences workshop offers hands-on opportunity to learn new method of DNA sequencing

Published: 07/27/2021

By: Maria Gebhardt

Brian Counterman offered students, post-docs and faculty a chance to sequence DNA with a new technique during an interactive workshop.

In the ATAC-seq Workshop, hosted by the Counterman Lab, each participant used different organisms to extract the DNA for the process.

“I have never worked with ATAC-sequencing before and this is a really exciting procedure to learn as a graduate student,” said Collin Modelski.

Participants of the workshop brought a variety of organisms that included birds, lizards, butterflies, flies, sea urchins, and plants. The morning of the first day was spent counting the cells from dissected tissue.

After counting the cells, the enzyme Transposomes was used to treat the DNA. This helped the participants find the specific DNA pieces they wanted to sequence.

The samples were then placed in a centrifuge with additional steps to wash and prepare the DNA sequencing.

Counterman, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Services, teaches development, evolution and genetic courses.

“It was really fun working with an array of different people,” shared Dasia Simpson, a graduate student in the Department of Biological Sciences. “I will be able to apply this protocol in my future career as a scientist in a laboratory.”

The workshop was held in the Rouse Life Sciences Building from July 21 through 23.

“This process was new to learn and very interesting,” said Lovely Lawas, a post-doc in the Department of Biological Sciences.

The workshop concluded with a seminar by Active Motif, an industry-leader that focuses on epigenetics research, who sponsored the workshop and made it possible for the participants to learn about this new protocol.

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