BIO

I am a second year student from Tallahassee. I am primarily interested in genetics and the different computational methods that can be applied to analyze them. I am hoping to continue studying computational biology in graduate school after leaving FSU.

Evaluating Genomic Variation

Abstract

In a recently patented method, polymerase chain reaction is possible using only one primer.
The method uses two common adapter sequences and a primer designed to match a repetitive element from a genome. A particular primer can be designed to target a particular number of loci. The focus of this study was to apply a computer program to several example genomes to isolate the best candidate primers. The candidate primers had to meet several requirements including an appropriate melting temperature, length, mapability of flanking regions, and expected number of loci. A maximum of 20 candidate primers were selected for each genome. Some of the primers have been tested, but future work is needed to demonstrate that the theoretical results match the experimental results across species. If the experimental values verify that the primer selection method works as expected, then in the future the method could be applied for less expensive gene sequencing, forensics, as well as paternity tests.

Keywords: Genome, Primer,