A dozen students from Southern Maine Community College in South Portland recently spent time studying the DNA of sharks, zebra fish and other animals at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory.

Marine science, biotechnology and science students, along with two professors, attended an intensive weeklong laboratory course in January, which focused on researching how certain proteins evolve in animals as diverse as sharks, dogs and humans.

Denry Sato, a professor emeritus at the MDI Biological Laboratory, taught the course. The students are now analyzing their data and will present their findings in April at the annual Maine Biological and Biomedical Sciences Symposium and at the Thinking Matters symposium at University of Southern Maine.

This is the sixth year students from Southern Maine Community College have attended the course, which is supported by the Maine INBRE grant from the IDeA program at the National Institutes of Health.

“I learned a multitude of techniques from lab skills to interpreting scientific data,” said Dustin Daws, a biotechnology student from South Portland. “The staff and faculty at (the lab) and our professors make this a valuable learning environment. I learned so much and had a blast.”

~credit Kate Irish Collins at Current, keepMEcurrent.com