The Biological Sciences program at Carnegie Mellon Qatar featured its flagship phage genomics research lab at the Sidra Functional Genomics Symposium recently.
The phage genomics lab is a program that takes place over the students’ first year. Students obtain soil and sand samples, isolate the genetic material and map it using computational biology techniques. The process is the same as mapping the human genome, albeit it on a smaller scale.
Last year, Biological Sciences student Umm-Kulthum Umlai became the first person to discover and characterize a phage from a sand sample in Qatar using these methods. Her research was recognized at the 2014 Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum, where she received the award for best student poster in the Energy and Environment category.
The Biological Sciences undergraduate program began in 2011, and is offered in collaboration with Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. Carnegie Mellon Qatar also offers a Computational Biology program based on Carnegie Mellon’s program in Pittsburgh, one of the first degree programs in the US.
