Welcome to this site about the work of Genomics Education Partnership on the Penn State Schuylkill campus. Students participate in bioinformatics and genomics research under the guidance of Ms. Mary Ann Smith. This research program is offered both in person and remotely to any Penn State students.
The Genomics Education Partnership started in 2005 under the leadership of Dr. Sally Elgin. Supported initially by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the GEP has also been supported by the NSF, and currently by grants from the NIH and NSF. The GEP now has over 100 affiliated college and university faculty members, and last year 67 faculty from 66 schools actively participated, engaging over 1300 undergraduates. The three major GEP research projects are centered on analyzing the evolution patterns of genes in Drosophila and wasps through gene annotation. Annotation is the process by which a meaningful context is provided to the DNA sequence whereby students generate valid models for genes in various Drosophila or wasp species. Gene annotation is a challenging problem. Students learn to use a genome browser, which enables assembly of much of the data available for a given gene, drawing on evolutionary comparisons, computer-generated gene models, and RNA-Seq findings (evidence of gene expression).