Some of the University’s pre-eminent scientists and 60 senior high school students from Auckland combined forces at the weekend on a field trip to use genome research - or the mapping of an organism’s hereditary information – to identify what lives on Hot Water Beach.
The joint expedition led to the collection of heat tolerant micro-organisms growing at the Coromandel beach. Students were then involved with extracting and amplifying the DNA from the samples and then helped carry out a further technological technique, called gel electrophoresis, to test if the DNA extractions were successful.
Project leader Justin O’Sullivan, a senior lecturer from the Institute for Natural Sciences, says the students responded well to the challenge presented, and the opportunity to work with research scientists like Dr Paul Rainey, who is internationally renowned for his work in experimental evolutionary biology.
Other participating scientists included biochemistry senior lecturer Dr Wayne Patrick, molecular biologist Dr Austen Ganley biochemist Dr Evelyn Sattlegger and Dr John Harrison who is a senior lecturer in chemistry.
“Considering it was all new to them they did a fantastic job,” Dr O’Sullivan, who was 2010 young molecular biologist of the year, says of the year 13 students from Mercury Bay Area School, Albany Senior High School, Botany Downs College and Epsom Girls Grammar.
They were each divided up into groups of three and partnered with a scientist who was on hand to observe their efforts and offer advice.
The field work was also closely monitored by Veronica Benton-Guy who set up the exercise as part of her biology Honours thesis.
“The extraction itself was quite a mission as it involved about 16 different steps, each one dependent on the one before it, using equipment the school students had never used before,” Dr O’Sullivan says.
Despite their lack of familiarity he says, “the extraction went really well”
It will be put on a DNA sequencing machine, funded via grants by Roche and the Maurice Wilkins Centre.
“This is really cutting edge work what they’re doing in using stuff that’s essentially a new development in science and in particular, high frequency sequencing,” Dr O’Sullivan says.
The DNA will next be amplified and the samples sent for the sequencing. Organisms within the DNA will then be identified, and using computer programming, the whole process will again be shown to the students involved with the extraction.
“From a scientific perspective we’re interested in sequencing the organisms, but we’re also interested in inspiring these students to come in and do science and give them a taste for what science is about.”
The University’s commitment to such objectives will be further enhanced next year with the launch of its Bachelor of Natural Sciences programme. It aims to educate a “new breed” of scientist equipped to solve the pressing and complex issues of modern times, from human health to environmental crises, global food production and disease control through a multi-disciplinary, research-based teaching model.