The Drown Lab has been awarded a two year grant to engage undergraduate researchers using new genomic technology to explore the Alaska soil microbiome. We'll be traveling across the state and working with undergraduates using the latest Nanopore sequencing devices (MinIONs).
Maddie McCarthy has been working for the past year in the lab exploring the presence of antibiotic resistance in microbes found in environmental samples. This week she presented her work finding widespread antibiotic resistance in a Fairbanks permafrost thaw gradient.
She used a combination of techniques including traditional culturing methods and antibiotic screening as well as nanopore sequencing to explore the resistome. She has just started comparing her sequencing data with the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance database.
Maddie's work was supported by Alaska BLaST who is funded by the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers UL1GM118991, TL4GM118992, or RL5GM118990.
She used a combination of techniques including traditional culturing methods and antibiotic screening as well as nanopore sequencing to explore the resistome. She has just started comparing her sequencing data with the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance database.
Maddie's work was supported by Alaska BLaST who is funded by the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers UL1GM118991, TL4GM118992, or RL5GM118990.
Lauren, Maddie, and Pat have been working hard this summer doing DNA extractions from our permafrost tunnel soil cores. They took a moment during one of long incubation times to snap a few pictures from inside the bubble of the ancient DNA lab at the University of Alaska Museum of the North.
Maddie, Anastasia, and Devin attended the 9th annual University of Alaska Biomedical Research Conference (UA-BRC). For the undergraduates, this was their first research conference and they presented their work using the MinION nanopore sequencer to explore genomics. As you can see below, they drew a crowd to their poster.
This two-day conference showcased biomedical and One Health related research from graduate students, undergraduate students, researchers, and faculty through-out Alaska in the form of oral presentations and poster sessions. There were two workshops about career issues relevant to undergraduate and graduate student training including internship opportunities, STEM student recruitment, networking, entrepreneurship/innovation, and employer expectations.
This two-day conference showcased biomedical and One Health related research from graduate students, undergraduate students, researchers, and faculty through-out Alaska in the form of oral presentations and poster sessions. There were two workshops about career issues relevant to undergraduate and graduate student training including internship opportunities, STEM student recruitment, networking, entrepreneurship/innovation, and employer expectations.
Undergraduate researcher Maddie McCarthy was recently awarded a BLaST Undergraduate Research Experience. Maddie will have a completely funded summer of research ahead of her. She'll be digging into the soil microbial communities of the Fairbanks Permafrost Experimental Station.
Undergraduate researcher Alex Wynne was recently awarded an URSA Summer Research Project. This includes funds for his project and a stipend for the summer. He'll use next-generation sequencing to characterize the relative abundances of methanogens and methane oxidizers found within a permafrost thaw gradient. By analyzing the relative amount of methane related microbes associated with each disturbance treatment, he will deduce how the thawing of permafrost may contribute to the net amount of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere.