Nina Brander (Hillsborough), Yangeng Jiang (Princeton), Kristyn Green (Ewing), Lauren Klei (Lawrenceville), Joshua Hauser (Lambertville), Elizabeth Koloski (Newtown, Pa.), Nathan Zavanelli (Pennington), Alexandra Rego (Lawrenceville) and Anthony Hannani (Allentown).
Pennington School students will have their work on the analysis of gene sequences published in the largest database of gene sequences in the world this summer.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information is set to publish work by nine students in TPS’ advanced molecular biology class.
Two of the students began the research last summer at Rutgers University; they continued the work with their classmates this academic year.
Research began when senior Anthony Hannani (Allentown) and junior Joshua Hauser (Lambertville) participated in the Waksman Student Scholars program at Rutgers University. The program, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and GE Healthcare, teaches students by having them perform authentic scientific research.
For three weeks in July 2013, the two students were trained in the theory and lab techniques of molecular cloning.
Hannani and Hauser, together with students from more than 25 other schools, worked to isolate DNA clones from members of the genus Landoltia (duckweed), a common aquatic plant found throughout the northeast United States. Their efforts paid off; both students isolated and analyzed novel DNA clones, and their work was recently published in the NCBI database.
This past fall, nine Pennington students participated in the same program as part of the school’s advanced research in molecular biology course, taught by Dr. David Hauser. Their work will contribute to an ongoing effort by a research team at Rutgers to understand gene expression in the duckweed plant.
In addition to Hannani and Hauser, the students are seniors Nina Brander (Hillsborough) and Lauren Klei and Alexandra Rego (Lawrenceville); and juniors Kristyn Green (Ewing), Elizabeth Koloski (Newtown, Pa.), Nathan Zavanelli (Pennington) and Yangeng Jiang (Princeton).
The students are set to present their work at a symposium in New Brunswick sponsored by GE Healthcare on June 4.
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