The GEP’s Southeast Regional Node held its Spring 2021 Regional Node Meeting on Friday, April 23, with over 60 in attendance, including students and faculty from constituent states Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. The keynote speaker Whitley Kelley, MS, Certified Genetic Counselor at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, AL, provided a fascinating overview of how genomics can be practically applied in careers in genetic counseling (see recording below). Faculty were inspired by the talk to include similar professional development training for students at their own institutions.
Following the keynote address, virtual breakout rooms offered a platform to undergraduate and graduate students to present 5-minute poster sessions on their GEP research projects. Again, faculty response was extremely positive; one professor commented, “Seeing the student presentations with the RNA-Seq provided even more weight to the benefits of the GEP Gene Annotation Curriculum in providing hands-on experiences with multiple data-sets and the feasibility of implementing this curriculum with other scientific questions.”
The two-hour online event served as a brief yet effective forum where students and faculty alike were empowered and motivated to continue active engagement in genomic research.
