This three-year NSF-funded project is developing a sustainable infrastructure and training program to assist undergraduate faculty in integrating RNA-Seq next-generation sequence (NGS) analysis into course-based and independent student research. In June 2014, 10 faculty participated in a Working Group Retreat at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In June 2015, 33 faculty participated in 2 workshops that were held at Bowie State University and at California State University at Long Beach. These participants are from diverse institutions and regions of the country. In June 2016, we held a virtual workshop. The goals are to instruct faculty teams to use the Green Line of DNA Subway; a bioinformatics RNA-Seq data analysis pipeline and to have faculty collaborate to produce curricula and lesson plans.
Cells contain several classes of RNA transcripts, all of which contribute to the functioning of the organism. The "transcriptome" is the qualitative and quantitative set of transcripts within a cell at a specific point in time. Transcript species, isoforms and quantities vary with developmental time, mutational status, and disease state. Determining the transcriptome at a given time is crucial for the understanding of the functional outputs of the genome. Next generation RNA-Seq is a powerful revolutionary technology for determining the transcriptome of any cell.
Killing Two Birds with One Stone (Download PDF)
"Generating high quality data is 'manna from heaven'." Working Group Member
"I'm really looking forward to seeing how this unfolds for all of us in the first working group as well as future years!"Working Group Member
"The NGS Working Group was a great opportunity to learn about DNA Subway and other great tools for big data analysis."Working Group Member