Nancy L. Elwess

Visualising "Junk" DNA through Bioinformatics

One of the hottest areas of science today is the field in which biology, information technology,and computer scienceare merged into a single discipline called bioinformatics. This field enables the discovery and analysis of biological data, including nucleotide and amino acid sequences that are easily accessed through the use of computers. As educatorsit is important to provide new challenges for students that incorporate the advancements in the areas of molecularbiology, the human genome project, and computer technology. This learning experience, using bioinformatics, targets advanced high school and college-level students. The activity allows students an opportunity to visualise the amount of non-coding regions existing within a DNA sequence.

DNA barcoding of stoneflies (Plecoptera) in a general genetics course

Abstract DNA Barcoding is a powerful molecular biology tool for the identification of species, analysis of gene flow from within and between populations and evaluating species concepts. The process can be incorporated into a college genetics or bioinformatics core curriculum. Here we demonstrate how, by simply using Plecoptera, we actively engaged students in DNA extraction, amplification and DNA Barcoding. As a result, 38 new DNA sequences were accepted by an international DNA database, with potentially three of them being new species to the database. More importantly, through multiple assessment measurements, students showed a high degree of learning took place and that all student learning objectives were met.