There was no more fitting way to kick off British Science Week than to have six Remove and Lower Sixth boys who have been working on the Snowdrop DNA project present their ground-breaking research at the Royal Society’s Annual Student Conference. The event, held in London on Wednesday 6 March brought together leading scientists and students from across the country.
The innovative project has seen the school partner with Rothamsted Research and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) to carry out the first ever research using DNA barcoding to discover relationships between different species of snowdrops. The project aims to uncover how different snowdrop species have evolved from a common ancestor by studying DNA sequence similarities and differences.
Read: Boys Take Part in Groundbreaking Student-Led Research
The research project was made possible thanks to funding from the Royal Society Partnership Grants Scheme, which brings together university and industry researchers and local schools to carry out exciting, innovative science.
The boys, who started work on the project back in September, are enjoying this unique opportunity to conduct groundbreaking research as part of a larger, sustained, collaborative project. The boys are gaining hands-on experience of horticulture, molecular genetics and bioinformatics and working alongside established scientists and learning from their vast experience.
Bedford School pupil Emir Kenrick explained, “I am enjoying the opportunities we are getting in this project because many of the skills we are learning and the work we are doing is at a postgraduate level and would usually be done after getting a university degree. We have been learning important skills such as micro pipetting, and we have been learning the entire process of how to extract and sequence DNA.”
The research has taken the boys to Anglesey Abbey to work alongside experts to identify and gather different types of snowdrop species, to the state-of-the-art science laboratories at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where they worked with bioinformaticians from the internationally renowned European Bioinformatics Institute to find similarities in the DNA sequences, and to Rothamstead Research where they carried out the DNA sequencing.
Read: Boys Research Snowdrop DNA at Wellcome Sanger Institute
Mrs Jean Mainstone, Teacher of Biology commented, “This project has enabled students to develop practical skills they would not normally use until they undertook a degree, and to participate in science that has not been undertaken before. They have developed not only their investigative skills but also their communication skills, and to see them present at the Royal Society with such enthusiasm and knowledge was extremely rewarding.”