Discovery Days: HPI Workshop Module

The University of Calgary held their annual Discovery Days on October 18^th and members of the Host Parasite Interactions (HPI) group were present and did an outstanding job representing the program. 

Discovery Days is an opportunity for high school students from Calgary to visit the University and get a sense of the careers available in veterinary medicine, medicine and other health sciences fields.  The young students get the chance to attend a keynote lecture, interact with health care professionals and academics as well as participate in a variety of workshops.  One of these workshops was facilitated by members of the HPI group and offered students insight into parasites and parasite genomes. This workshop entitled Parasite Genomes-What Can Their DNA Tell Us, explored the role of DNA in understanding and combating harmful human and animal infections.

The workshop was designed by HPI members Russell Avramenko, Alec Campbell and Dave Curran with support from Dr. James Wasmuth as well as photography by Marie Halliez.  The workshop was attended by roughly twenty students who at completion of the workshop, gave very positive feedback about the activities’ content and engagement.   Dr. Wasmuth too commended the hard work of the organizers in an email to HPI group members saying “our trainees represented the program and UofC with tremendous aplomb”.  He further applauded the excellent work put in by the HPI trainees and expressed that the event was an overall success.

The workshop itself consisted of presentations and a show and tell of some important human and animal parasites followed by an entertaining bioinformatics game designed to show just one of the many ways researchers can use parasite DNA to combat parasitic infection.  In this exercise students were given DNA sequences from a variety of parasites and had to use the online Genbank database and BLAST search programs to match their unknown sequences with parasites from the database.  Once the infection was identified students then had to prescribe treatment to save their imaginary patients.  For one last wrinkle, the supply of available medicines was limited meaning time was a factor in diagnosing their parasites.

This was the first year that the newly formed HPI group participated in Discovery Days but surely won’t be the last.  Congratulations to the HPI trainee volunteers for putting on a creative and informative workshop.  Can’t wait to see what HPI comes up with for next year!