Discovery Day 2018

Everyone talks about how the early bird gets the worm, but what happens when a cow is infected with one? That’s what several high school students discovered while attending a workshop about parasites on Discovery Day.

On Friday, October 19, students from various high schools located throughout Alberta travelled to the University of Calgary, where they attended workshops related to Health Sciences. One of these workshops was led by the HPI Group at the University of Calgary with help from the Gilleard, Wasmuth, McKay, and Lewis labs. Students learned about what parasites are, the different types of parasites that exist, and how parasites are an issue for the Albertan cattle industry and other industries, such as fishing. Tying it all together with Discovery Day’s theme of Health Sciences, the students were introduced to the growing field of Bioinformatics and how it can be used to help solve this problem.

During this workshop, the high school students were given the opportunity to observe parasites using the traditional method of looking through a microscope, and were able to compare parasitic DNA sequences with known genomes to identify specific parasites using their newfound knowledge of Bioinformatics tools. With this information, the students were then able to choose the best course of treatment to save their assigned cow, provided, of course, that there was a treatment available. Unfortunately, not all cows survived, but luckily, these cows were digital and no real cows were harmed in the process.

Although the topic of parasites is certainly not meant for the squeamish and faint of heart, Dr. Wasmuth and the volunteers did a tremendous job of teaching the students about parasites and their effect on the cattle industry, all the while using a dash of humour to keep things interesting. It might have been a bad day for parasites, but it was a good day for cattle, students, and volunteers alike.