Genomic Workshop for Native American College students
A Genomic Science Workshop was held last week (May 24-26, 2016) at the J Craig Venter Institute Rockville campus for a group of ten Native American college students. The students participated in two full-day intensive training activities learning how to study the “microbiome” of natural water sources. Each student had the chance to perform hands-on lab work including DNA isolation from an environmental water source, PCR of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene, and gel electrophoresis. Individual computer workstations were provided for the computer lab sessions for students to follow along. The group was introduced to basic Linux command-line analysis and the popular 16S analysis package QIIME. Overall, the workshop provided the students a foundation of knowledge and tools to identify and classify microbial populations in environmental water sources, and enabled the students to participate in water quality analysis and monitoring efforts of their homeland reservations.
The workshop students were welcomed by JCVI President Karen Nelson and Rockville Campus Director Rembert Pieper. Informal discussion panels were also held to provide networking and research career development opportunities with invited guest speakers including Science Education Directors from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and Native research scholars from the National Institute of Health (NIH). The students were also presented with a preview of the astronaut microbiomes as an application of human microbiome study. Workshop students also had the opportunity to visit the US Capitol and the National Museum of the American Indian.
The workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation through a Maize Cell Genomics grant and was organized by Agnes Chan (JCVI; co-PI), in collaboration with the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL; PI Dave Jackson, Outreach Educator Joslynn Lee), the University of Wyoming (UW; co-PI Ann Sylvester), Montana State University (Mari Eggers), and the Little Big Horn College (LBHC; John Doyle). LBHC is a tribal college located in the Crow Reservation, MT. The NSF Maize project has established a long-term outreach relationship with LBHC, and has organized a number of training workshops for Native students previously at LBHC, UW, and CSHL. Participants for the 2016 workshop included Native students recruited from the LBHC, Montana State University, Fort Lewis College, and Northern Arizona State University.
The PIs of the Maize Genomics Project would like to express sincere thanks to instructors from JCVI including Hernan Lorenzi, Yongwook Choi, Vivek Krishnakumar, Stephanie Mounaud, the JCVI Information Technology team, the Administrative Assistant team, and all colleagues for their generous assistance, support, and patience for a successful outreach educational workshop.