Genome Detectives is a citizen science project – a collaboration between scientists and members of the public – with the aim of characterising and classifying bacterial genomic data.
Bacterial infections remain a major threat to human health, despite the positive impacts vaccinations and antibiotics have had in preventing and treating disease. At the Maiden Lab, University of Oxford, we work to improve understanding of bacterial diseases by studying bacterial genomes. DNA sequencing has become more affordable and available in recent years, meaning genomes are being sequenced in increasing numbers. The wealth of bacterial genome data available is an amazing source of information, but requires processing and interpretation to produce meaningful results.
We set up Genome Detectives with funding from the Wellcome Trust, to help investigate the huge amount of sequence data stored in the PubMLST bacterial genomes database. The discoveries our Detectives make will be used by scientists and doctors around the world to tackle the threat of infectious diseases.
How do I get started?
If you want to become a Genome Detective and are completely new to genomics, before reading further we suggest you head over to the Genome Detectives Project on Zooniverse and have a go at classifying some DNA sequences.
Join the Genome Detectives Training Academy
Thank you so much to our amazing Genome Detectives volunteers for your continued hard work and dedication over on Zooniverse!
If you are an experienced Detective and are ready for the next step, join our Training Academy here and work towards becoming a Genome Detective Inspector.
At the Training Academy, you’ll learn more about how to investigate a DNA sequence, compare it to defined alleles, and deduce what types of mutations have happened. Don’t worry if this sounds difficult at first – we’ll guide you along the way. Happy curating!
Learn more about bacteria and their genomes
Check out our blog pages here for updates on the Zooniverse Genome Detectives Project and to learn more about bacterial diseases and genomics!
