Continuing my Campaign with a Stretch Goal!!

Hi Everyone!

Thank you so much to everyone who has donated and supported my research thus far! I am so thankful to have reached my goal to continue my PhD research on a very important topic!

As it is laid out in my budget, the funds raised are going towards generating transcriptomes for my species, purchasing sequencing prep materials (such as enzymes, primers, etc.) and lab supplies (such as pipette tips, gloves, and tubes), as well as conducting RNA-sequencing on my coral fragments after thermal acclimation. Currently, I only have enough money to sequence about 1/2 of the corals in my experiment (the minimum amount I needed). But, since I have 19 days left in my campaign, I have decided to try and raise additional funds to sequence more of the corals I'm working on, so that my dataset can be more complete. 

Therefore, I have created a "stretch goal" up to $4,000 to examine gene expression in the other half of my coral fragments (~400). This molecular snapshot will tell us which genes are up-regulated (increased) or down-regulated (decreased) in response to acclimation, providing insights into which genes may play a role during acclimation to help them survive thermal stress. 

We can examine each gene and its overall expression at a particular time using a "heatmap", as seen in the figure below. In this figure, the samples being compared are in the yellow box. In the green box, there is a list of differentially expressed genes of interest. In the heatmap, blue indicates that the gene is up-regulated and red indicates that the gene is down-regulated. The different shades indicate just how much down or up-regulation is occurring. 

In this example, let's imagine that the first six samples are control samples, or the corals that were not acclimated, and the last six samples were corals that were acclimated. Looking at the differences in expression, we say that these genes of interest were up-regulated in acclimated corals compared to control, and therefore potentially helped the corals survive thermal stress. 

This is exactly what I am trying to do! By sequencing more corals, I will be able to get a more detailed understanding of which species of coral acclimated and survived stress, and which genes may have helped them in their response. By donating, you can help me get a more complete picture of what is taking place and if this type of response exists in every coral species - important information that can help us pinpoint more at-risk coral species for conservation and management plans!