WKU Graduate Student Completes DNA Sequence Of Virus

When Ali Wright was considering her college choice, she had plenty of options close to her North Carolina home.

She chose Western Kentucky University because the Biology Department provides opportunities for incoming students to participate in hands-on research activities. "I wasn't sure I could have had that opportunity at a school back home," Wright said.



Now, seven years later as Wright is completing her master's thesis, she has become the first WKU student to complete the entire DNA sequence of an organism - the genome of a bacterial virus.

"It's a pretty amazing accomplishment for a single student to sequence an entire genome," said Dr. Rodney King, associate professor of biology, whose research projects include genomic analysis of bacteriophages and phage-host interactions.

At Dr. King's laboratory in the Complex for Engineering Biological Sciences, Wright finished sequencing and annotating the genome of a bacterial virus isolated from the environment. "Bacterial viruses are the most numerous organisms on our planet and impact bacterial evolution, infectious disease and global processes such as carbon and energy cycling," he said.



Wright began working in Dr. King's lab as an undergraduate researcher with a functional characterization of the virus. After completing her bachelor's degree, she decided to expand her analysis by determining the sequence of the entire viral genome as the thesis project for her master's degree.



"Completing this project is a tremendous accomplishment and we are fortunate to have the technology and resources available at WKU for this type of endeavor," Dr. King said. "Ali's work also is a testament to the importance of undergraduate research.

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To determine the 41,538 base pair of DNA sequence, Wright became proficient in using the DNA sequencing equipment in the WKU Biotechnology Center and in using bioinformatics software to complete the assembly and analysis of the viral genome.

"It was like putting together a puzzle," Wright said.

Wright's work on the bacterial virus will now become part of Genbank, the National Institutes of Health's genetic sequence database. 

Also, in May, Wright will present her master's thesis during the American Society for Microbiology conference in San Diego. Thousands of scientists attend the annual meeting of the world's largest microbiology society. 

Wright has received travel funds from the Biology Department and a grant from the Kentucky-Tennessee branch of the ASM to attend the May 23-27 meeting.



"Ali has made a significant contribution to a larger body of knowledge on viruses and to our understanding of their evolutionary relationships," Dr. King said.

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu and at http://wkunews.wordpress.com/. If you'd like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact Rodney King at (270) 745-6910.

Support for the project was provided by the National Institutes of Health and a National Center for Research Resources Grant (P20 RR16481).

SEE ALSO: Two biology professors and their graduate teaching assistant have completed bioinformatics training that will benefit WKU students in a new genomics discovery course. 
http://wkunews.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/genomics/