Episode 06 - A Pretty Fly DNA Extraction Method

This week we discuss how to non-destructively extract and sequence DNA from historical mosquito and tsetse fly samples from the Natural History Museum’s collection. We discover a new method for doing just that with Dr Petra Korlevic (@petrathepostdoc), a Post-doctoral researcher at the EMBL-EBI (@emblebi)/Sanger Institute (@sangerinstitute), and Dr Erica McAlister (@flygirlNHM), Senior Curator of Diptera at the Natural History Museum (@NHM_London). Erica and Petra explain how this method can be used to open up museum collections to molecular researchers in order to answer questions around subjects such as the rise of insecticide resistance amongst these disease vector insects, and the diet, behaviour and ecology of key pollinator species during the rise of global warming or changes in farming practice. We talk about the benefits of preprinting, and how digitising museum collections and developing molecular methods such as this, is increasing the accessibility of data on the specimens within them to scientists around the world.

Read the full preprint https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.28.450148v1.full

Other links

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/collections/entomology-collections.html

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/life-sciences/insects.html

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/our-work/digital-collections/digital-collections-programme.html

https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/insect-collections

This episode was produced by John D Howard & Emma Wilson and edited by John D Howard.

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Produced by JEmJ Productions (find us on Twitter: Jonny @JACoates, Emma @ELWilson92, John @JohnDHoward8) and generously supported by ASAPbio (https://asapbio.org | @asapbio_).