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Welcome to the summer of sequencing

image of the participants in the Summer of Nanopore workshop, University of Hawaii
Summer of Nanopore workshop participants at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. In the foreground, local host Dr. Stuart Donachie demonstrates a lab technique as students prepare to sequence microbial samples collected from locales across Hawaii. Participants used nanopore sequencing to help identify cell cultures not analyzable by other methods.

What do a shoe and a cotton swab have in common? Aside from the cotton, they are both part of the most exciting summer school you’ve ever heard of.

The Summer of Nanopore Sequencing 2024 was a three-day nationwide workshop series held by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s DNA Learning Center (DNALC) in collaboration with Oxford Nanopore Technologies and the InnovATEBIO National Center for Biotechnology Education. These workshops introduced high school and college educators to mobile genome sequencing technology.

Maybe the most fascinating part? They conducted DNA sequencing experiments with same-day results.

One speedy experiment was aptly nicknamed the “shoe-ome.” It allowed participants to see what’s hidden under their soles in a whole new light. All it took was a simple swab and the power of portable sequencing.

“People can take off a shoe, rub a cotton swab on it, and do a little bit of DNA extraction and sequencing,” explains DNALC Assistant Director for Diversity and Research Readiness Jason Williams. “They can see thousands of microbes living there and get a fancy phylogenetic tree of how those microbes are related.”

In this installment of Cocktails & Chromosomes, Williams demonstrates the capabilities of portable sequencing, using beer yeast.

The shoe-ome is just one example of how CSHL’s DNALC is making genetics education more accessible to students around the globe. Portable sequencing is quick, easy, and affordable, allowing kids from all walks of life to learn about DNA. It also provides educators with a simple but effective teaching tool.

In other components of the workshop, educators use DNA barcoding to identify plants, or they extract DNA from bacteriophages—longtime subjects of study at CSHL—to assemble their genomes.

The workshop series traveled to the following locations:

  • Spelman College, Atlanta, GA
  • Arecibo C3 STEM Center, Arecibo, PR
  • Skyline College, San Bruno, CA
  • DNA Learning Center NYC at City Tech, Brooklyn, NY
  • University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI
  • Granite Technical Institute & Natural History Museum of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
  • James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA

“Genome sequencing is literally in the palm of your hand, and you can do it in a high school or college class,” says Williams. “That’s the biggest takeaway for educators. They can put this technology into practice almost right away.”

Written by: Sara Giarnieri, Social Media Specialist | giarnieri@cshl.edu | 516-367-6842

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