The work within the framework of one of the projects in the field of "Agro-industrial biotechnologies" was supervised by scientists from the Central Institute of the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries. The staff of the institute told the participants of the festival a lot of interesting things about the practice of conducting laboratory and field research, and also presented their wards with effective strategies for building a scientific career.
Together with representatives of Genotek, employees of the Department of Molecular Genetics, chief specialist Valery Soshnina and specialist Victoria Shcherbakova, introduced their students to the methodology of species determination of aquatic biological resources using molecular genetic studies.
The relevance of this project is related to the problem of falsification of fish products. The actual species of food products from aquatic biological resources sold in stores may not correspond to those declared by manufacturers and sellers. The determination of the species of unprocessed marine products can be carried out visually, but after processing the products, it is almost impossible to carry out such an analysis.
During the scientific shift, the students listened to a course of lectures on genetics and biology of aquatic biological resources, read by an expert in the field – the head of the Department of molecular genetics Nikolai Muge. The students mastered the skills of working in the laboratory: they learned how to isolate DNA using various methods, conduct a polymerase chain reaction, visualize amplified fragments on an agarose gel, sequence the studied site, and also use programs to align the obtained nucleotide sequences.
The results of the work were highly appreciated by experts at the defense, and were also of great interest among the public at the general festival of projects.
VNIRO Press Service
