Microbial Genome Analysis

The Microbial Genome Annotation Network (MGAN) provides authentic and inexpensive research opportunities in microbial genome analysis (Figure 1).  It is geared toward high school and undergraduate students.  

Figure 1.  The History of GENI-ACT - websites that informed the GENI-ACT model and practice.

MGAN acts in collaboration with several groups and curators:

• the Genomics Education National Initiative (GENI) project, 
• Dr. Cheryl Kerfeld (University of California, Berkley, CA)
• Dr. Brad Goodner (Hiram College, OH)
• the Openmods system of Dr. Roy Welch (Syracuse University, NY), and 
• the National Science Foundation

The available technology includes:  

1. an online toolkit that consolidates publicly available bioinformatics tools into a single platform (click here for a list), and 
2. online collaboration tools and wet-lab resources (e.g., bacterial strains, primers and plasmids) for functional genomics studies. 

The toolkit is called GENI-ACT (Genomics Education National Initiative - Annotation Collaboration Toolkit).  GENI-ACT represents an updated and independent version of the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute's IMG-ACT platform, with new features added by collaboration with the GENI collaboration platform.  To date, more than 100 undergraduate and high school instructors are using GENI-ACT in their classrooms and personal research since it went live in 2014.   This blog provides educational resources for those trained in using GENI-ACT.