Monday 24 July 2017

We're sequencing snakes! (But the competition's still on...)

Today was the first BABS3291 Genes, Genomes and Evolution lecture and the official opening of the new Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics labs in the shiny new E26 Bioscience South building at UNSW. This seemed like an appropriate day to reveal the chosen organisms for the BABS2017 Genome.

And the answer is... two snake species!

And not just any snakes… the Tiger Snake (left) and Brown snake (right, narrowly avoided by my postdoc Åsa and her partner!) are two of the most deadly snakes in the world. More information will follow in future posts.

Data from the BABS Genome is going to form the core of the seven-week genomics bioinformatics practical at the heart of the coursework for BABS3291. This obviously meant that we needed to start generating data before the course started. We’re still keen to find out what you would like sequenced, though, and the BABS Genome competition remains open for now. Who knows, you may help pick the next genome we do!

Photo Credits

  • Tiger Snake: Teneche - CC BY-SA 3.0. Location: Banyule Flats Reserve, Melbourne, Victoria.

  • Brown Snake: Patrick Dessi. Location: Booroomba Rocks, Namadgi National Park, ACT, Australia.

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