Massively parallel biology students: More than 900 students co-author genomics research paper

The list of authors for an article on the comparative genomics of a fruit fly chromosome, published online May 11 by the journal G3, runs three single-spaced pages. Large author lists are the norm in high-energy physics, but a novelty in biology. What is going on? 

The 1,014 authors include 940 undergraduates from 63 institutions, all working in parallel to solve the mysteries embedded in the DNA sequences of the unusual "dot chromosome" in fruit flies.

"By organizing the efforts of 'massively parallel' undergraduates, we can solve problems that would defeat other methods," said Sarah (Sally) Elgin, PhD, the Viktor Hamburger Professor of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and founder of the Genomics Education Partnership, the group coordinated at Washington University that completed the research project.

Equally important, Elgin said, we are able to give many students the hands-on research experience traditionally available only to the lucky few who could find slots in laboratories over the summer.

When Elgin became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in 2002 and was tasked with making science more engaging to undergraduates, she realized that the shift from the wet bench to the computer meant that the doors of the lab could finally be thrown open. "You have low lab costs, you don't have any safety issues, and you can make more use of peer instruction. There are huge advantages to bioinformatics as an introduction to research," she said.

To realize this vision, she founded the Genomics Education Partnership, a large collaboration of colleges and universities coordinated by Washington University's biology department and McDonnell Genome Institute, that provides students with the opportunity to work on large-scale DNA sequencing projects.