Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

hi, i have just started a project on the science of analyzing dna structure in embryos to determine early genetic diseases, but i also know that the majority of award winning projects present new information or proof. Any ideas of what kind of experiemnts of proofs that i could present in order to tackles this science fair project would be extremely helpful!
thanks !

I am not an expert in this field, but I can tell you what I know. This is a big project. First , you need some fancy and very expensive sequencing equipment. Then you need an appropriate source of embryos. You could just do a literature search and write a review. As a science fair judge, I would find that appropriate, but many of my fellow judges would insist on experimental work.

Hi,

One relatively quick idea is to do a lot of DNA analysis online, as this would be a pretty quick sort of analysis given the short amount of time that you have left. BLAST (http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi#63002997) is a very good search and alignment tool for DNA sequences, and you could use it in a lot of different ways. Perhaps you could compare certain genes between species to determine homology, or something of that sort.

With that in mind, you would still have to present some sort of new analysis. Though it does not have to be groundbreaking, it is better to keep it interesting, demonstrating maybe some sort of evolutionary feature between similar (or different) species.

Hope this helps!
Aaron Lin