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Columns::November 26, 2001
Grants of $7 million will support studies of substance abuse treatment
Business executive will speak on campus
European Union cabinet member will discuss emerging agricultural trade issues during Fanning Lecture
Full-court press
Study calls for workforce coalition to address state’s rural housing
Holiday choices to be subject of informal poll by staff governance group
Out with the old
Campus Closeup
Kudos
University Health Center announces addition of two physicians
Campus scenes
Campus News
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| Dimitri Kolychev, a Foundation Fellow from Chamblee, looks at data worked up by undergraduate research students with Lee Pratt of the botany department. Photo by Peter Frey |
Learning curve
Undergraduates add to database of genetic knowledge
By Phil Williams
phil@franklin.uga.edu
Dipinder Keer laughs at the question.
“What have I learned so far?” he asks. “That I feel I don’t know anything about computers or genetics. But maybe by the end of the year I can tell people what this is all about.”
Keer, from Nairobi, Kenya, is a senior Honors student at UGA, so when he claims ignorance he is probably kidding. Still, being thrown headlong into the world of undergraduate scientific research can be daunting—or at least it was, until dramatic changes in technology a few years ago made it much easier.
Tucked in the third floor of the Miller Plant Sciences Building, an entire laboratory of undergraduates is adding to the world’s store of genetic knowledge. Not all of the students are even science majors, but already they have made important
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| Laura Neeley (left) and Crystal Oliver, both undergraduates working in the lab, share sampling techniques. Photo by Peter Frey |
contributions to the growing databases of genes for everything from sorghum to humans.
Keer has only been in the program for six weeks, but others have worked longer in the botany department lab of Lee Pratt and Marie-Michèle Cordonnier-Pratt, and their achievements have been both amazing and encouraging.
“Even three years ago, a student working in a lab like ours would have had to have an extensive background,” says Lee Pratt. “But so much has changed since then. On one hand, the technology is more sophisticated and highly technical, but it is also much easier for students to grasp. They can now get involved in an important way.”
The lab is a bustling place, and the students work so closely together the group is almost like a family. The program began three years ago as part of a grant from the National Science Foundation—a grant that was just renewed for another $3.6 million over three years. Pratt is principal investigator for the grant, while Cordonnier-Pratt and Alan Gingle of the Office of Vice President for Research are co-principal investigators.
The grant strongly encourages diversity as part of the undergraduate experience, and students of many backgrounds and cultures are part of the program.
There are now 15 undergraduate students in the laboratory, four of whom work for pay, while others gain class credit and the satisfaction of being on the cutting edge of genetic research. They are majoring in such areas as business, computer science, genetics and biochemistry. Five are working through the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, part of the Honors Program, and three—Amy Sexauer, Dimitri Kolychev and Steven Smith—are Foundation Fellows.
“The students start in their first year at a place appropriate to their knowledge,” says Cordonnier-Pratt. “By the second year, we assign them projects that are more targeted. Every student has an independent schedule, so we have to teach all of them separately before they begin projects.”
Fortunately, the Pratts have ample support from such people as graduate student Aynsley Eastman, who serves as undergraduate outreach education coordinator. A former undergraduate in the program, Manish Shah, is now a technician, and his experience has paid off in helping the students.
“Before I came into the program, I really didn’t know any research lab techniques such as the ones used here,” says Shah, who is from Augusta and who graduated with high honors in biochemistry last May. “I was able to work on human genes with researchers at Emory University, and I learned so much. I decided to take a year more after getting my undergraduate degree to work in the lab.”
Shah, who hopes to be a radiologist or oncologist, has helped the undergraduates a great deal, says Lee Pratt.
The students work both in a traditional “wet” lab and with computers in determining the DNA sequences of genes in such organisms as sorghum, horses, humans, pine trees and even a fish pathogen called “Ich.” Where three years ago a good week might find scientists sequencing 20 genes, the Pratts’ lab alone now sequences thousands a week, and so far the lab has contributed more than 100,000 such sequences to GenBank, a national genetic database coordinated by the National Center for Biological Information.
The sequences there can be downloaded by scientists all over the world for further study. DNA sequences once had to be determined one at a time, but new “high-throughput” methods allow researchers to sequence hundreds at a time.
“It is incredible to undergraduates that at their level they can add to knowledge, but they can,” says Cordonnier-Pratt. “It is very, very rewarding research.” |
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