2 蘑菇短视频grad students attend forensic genetics conference in Montreal
Just about anyone鈥檚 going to be starstruck when they meet their favorite celebrities. Natalie May鈥檚 idols, however, are a bit different than most. They鈥檙e scientists, whose research she鈥檚 read since she started graduate school at 蘑菇短视频.
Recently, she had the opportunity to present her research to them on a worldwide stage.
May, fellow 蘑菇短视频student Jordan Brown, chemistry and physics assistant professor Brittania Bintz and biology associate professor Maureen Hickman attended the annual International Society for Forensic Genetics meeting in Montreal, Canada.
"It's really a nice way to network with forensic biology practitioners from all over the world,鈥� Bintz said. 鈥淧eople give talks and they give poster presentations, and there are also workshops that you can participate in."
鈥淚t allows you to network with other practitioners, but also to stay abreast of all of the most current things that are happening in forensic DNA analysis across the world.鈥�
At the conference, May, a biology student from Radford, Virginia, presented her thesis titled "A comparison of SNP data generation using the Verogen ForenSeq Kintelligence Kit from cold case bone samples across three decades.鈥�
It involves an emerging method in crime labs called forensic investigative genetic genealogy, in which the investigator uploads a DNA sample from a crime scene to compare the results to DNA data that鈥檚 generated by direct-to-consumer companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.
The investigator then gets a list of putative relatives and can then take that information and construct a family tree to try to figure out who the unknown suspect or missing person is.
Specifically with May, she has been testing cold case samples from 12 different individuals from the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s in hopes of identifying them.
鈥淚 was able to talk about my thesis research, which is very, very cool because we spent most of the summer in the lab going through all the samples that I'm working with, and we got some results that I was able to talk to a lot of different people in the field about,鈥� May said.
鈥淭hey were able to provide a lot of advice for how to move forward with the results that I got and that was just really incredible鈥� It was so exciting. 鈥㊣ remember I was so nervous, and then I had so many people come up to my poster, and they seemed very interested.鈥�
Both students also attended workshops and talks with highly respected practitioners in the field of forensic genetics, which helped Brown with his thesis in its early stages.
Brown鈥檚 research goes hand in hand with May鈥檚, as he鈥檚 looking to optimize and potentially make a new kit that can work for both ancient and forensic DNA samples.
鈥淚t gave me really, really important background information to set me up for more computer science-oriented forensic science work,鈥� said Brown, a Winston-Salem native.
While Brown and May had an invaluable experience in Montreal, seeing her students learn, network and grow was the cherry on top for Bintz.
鈥淚 was very happy that these two were there to represent 蘑菇短视频because they're both exceptional students,鈥� Bintz said. 鈥淚 think it's just an invaluable experience for our students, and we feel proud of the fact that they're able to represent us in such a positive way.鈥�