WA’s most famous scientist, Nobel Prize winner, Professor Barry Marshall seems to think so. That’s him in the picture, digging up a soil sample for DNA analysis.
DNA in dirt? You might be thinking it’s a little peculiar. Well, it’s not the first time Professor Marshall has done something a bit peculiar in the name of science. He drank a bacterial cocktail and it helped win him a Nobel Prize!
In early May, SIDE students will have the opportunity to attend a very special online event. We will be hosting MicroBlitz Live. Professor Marshall will be joined by Professor Andy Whiteley from UWA to launch the new MicroBlitz mobile app, and explain why they want SIDE students to get out there and dig for DNA.
Following their talk, they’ll be staying on to answer student questions.
MicroBlitz is a citizen science project at the University of Western Australia. It’s a live and interactive scientific research project where everyday people can join the team. Once people have been trained on how to take a soil sample they can go out into the field and collect samples to send back to specialised labs at UWA where the DNA of the microbes living in the soil can be extracted and analysed.
