POUL DUE JENSEN FOUNDATION RESEARCH to that, we pay private companies to c ollect samples, when they for instance are in the field working for the authorities, Vibeke Rudkjøbing Jørgensen explains. But how do you explain the sample collection in a sufficiently simple way for regular people to be able to help collect samples? That has posed a challenge of simplification. – We cannot have 50 individual and detailed descriptions, so I made laminated descriptions and collection kits with 6-7 overall procedures: ‘If you are in a stream, gather this much water and filter it this way. If you collect a soil sample, you have to dig in five places and so on’, says Vibeke Rudkjøbing Jørgensen. Top-tuned laboratory In the lab at Fredrik Bajers Vej in Aalborg, PhD student Thomas B.N. Jensen has worked hard to design the processes for data analysis to be able to handle the many thousands of samples. – We are used to handling many samples, but not THAT many samples. How can we ensure that they don’t get mixed up? Each sample has to be identified clearly, and we cannot scribble on the test tubes with a marker that gets smudged, Thomas B. N. Jensen says. Thomas works closely with Vibeke and Simon to make the processes work. The DNA materials are extracted from the samples in the lab, but the main part of the DNA sequencing is handled by an external supplier, as it is cheaper that way. Finish line in sight in 2022 After the sequencing of the DNA, data and metadata from each sample ends up in a large database in order for the research group to be able to analyse the collected data, which will hopefully end up providing a complete overview of Denmark’s microflora. Mikroorganisms Microorganisms exist in all ecosystems on earth and can be divided into two main categories: Eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) are single-celled organisms without a nucleus. Eukaryotes are single- or multi-celled organisms, where each cell contains a nucleus. Source: Wikipedia Vibeke Rudkjøbing Jørgensen keeps the samples in a walk-in freezer until the DNA of the microorganisms can be extracted and analysed. Photo: Poul Due Jensen Foundation 36
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