Friday, November 27, 2015

Seminar: DNA Metabarcoding

by Maria Casso

Yesterday, Xavier Turon and Owen Wangensteen participated at the seminar "DNA Metabarcoding", organised by the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio). DNA metabarcoding is a method to assess biodiversity which combines DNA based identification and next generation sequencing, and it can have several applications. The aim of the seminar was to show the potencial and limitations of the method.

The first lecture was Xavier's and it was an introduction about the impediments of taxonomy and how can metabarcoding methods contribute to assess biodiversity. After him, Owen talked about the specific case of metabarcoding of hard bottom marine communities. He also explained the few but critical stages of the pipeline were there isn't a consensus among scientists. It is really awesome to watch live how a new method is developing and be part of it.

The seminar took place at the School of Biology (UB). Many researchers and students attended, and some interesting questions came out. It was dense but also clarifying and motivating.