BIO

Hannah is a second-year Biological Sciences and Economics double major at Florida State University, and she currently works as a research assistant in the Lemmon Lab. Under the direct mentorship of Dr. Alan Lemmon, her collaborative projects include studying neuroreceptor evolution in Pseudacris feriarum and developing a new method for large genome assembly. Outside of her research, Hannah is a Presidential Scholar and member of the Honors Program and the Torch Society.

New Genome Assembly Method

Abstract

Current methods of genome assembly do not differentiate between the various regions of a genome (i.e., satellite regions, multi-copy regions, gene-rich regions, etc.). Instead, all regions are treated as equally helpful and informative. While this approach is sufficient for smaller genomes, assemblies for larger genomes face complications as it is difficult to distinguish the highly repetitive regions of the genome from one another. Our approach focuses on using single-copy regions of the genome as anchor points, which allows for relative position information to be obtained and the other regions of the genome to be overlaid onto the single-copy regions towards the end of the assembly.

Keywords: Genetics, Genome Assembly, Computation, Kmers