Environmental Metagenomic and Embryology

This 10-week hybrid course that meets twice per week – once virtually, and once in-person (lab), introduces students to research about gene expression and metagenomics of fish embryos exposed to environmental stressors relevant to pollution and climate change. Chemical pollution from urban water sources washing into estuaries and ocean consists of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), pesticides, phthalates, and heavy metals. These chemicals can affect organisms’ development by altering morphology, physiology, immunity, metabolism, etc. Changes in gene activity that regulate organism’s stress response may be temporal or permanent. Stress-induced changes in gene activity and metagenomic whole-body composition influence how individuals and populations cope with environmental stress. You will expose fish embryos to chemically characterized water samples collected at the Tijuana River Estuary to better understand the effects of estuarine pollution on morphology, heart rate, gene activity, and microbial composition of during animal development. This course will incorporate multiple research methods including microscopy, fish embryology, fish heart physiology, RNA shallow sequencing, and metagenomic sequencing. Students will work in small teams in the lab to discuss theoretical concepts and primary scientific literature, design experiments, perform research, analyze the data, and prepare their scientific report. The course will conclude with a formal science seminar during which the students will present their work in person to a selected audience.