A group of 24 Bedford School boys from across the Remove, Fifth and Sixth Forms have embarked on an exciting new project that will see them taking part in pioneering research involving snowdrop DNA.
The Snowdrop DNA Project, funded by a grant from The Royal Society, will enable students to conduct groundbreaking research as part of a larger, sustained, collaborative project. The project will provide boys with hands-on experience of horticulture, molecular genetics and bioinformatics, as well as the opportunity to meet and work with established scientists who can share their experience with them.
This will be the first piece of research ever to use DNA barcoding to discover relationships between different species of snowdrops. The aim of this research is to uncover, from DNA sequence similarities and differences, how different snowdrop species have evolved from a common ancestor.
Last week, the boys taking part in the project visited Anglesey Abbey to hear a talk from Head Gardeners David Jordan and Amy McCormick. The visit helped to put into context the project they will be working on over the next two terms. David spoke with the boys for over an hour, talking about some of the plants found at Anglesey Abbey and, in particular, the snowdrop collection, how snowdrops reproduce and other background information for the project.
Remove Former Stirling Smallwood, one of the boys taking part, explained, “The fact that we will be able to sequence this DNA is extremely exciting for me, as it is a thing that I didn’t think I would ever do. At Anglesey Abbey, we learned about the different species of snowdrops – there were many different types listed, but this is because snowdrops can inter-breed. We learned about how bulbs multiply using the Fibonacci sequence, and we learned a vast array of skills that horticulturalists need to do their job.”
The boys will this term work on the skills required to carry out the research. Next term, they will continue to work alongside experts at Anglesey Abbey to identify snowdrop species, as well as visit the state-of-the-art science laboratories at Rothamsted Research to carry out DNA sequencing. Additionally, they will work with bioinformaticians from the internationally renowned European Bioinformatics Institute to find similarities in the DNA sequences.
