Rotary club
The Brown County Rotary Club will meet over Zoom at 8 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 11.
Guest speaker Nicholas Purchase, a senior at Bowdoin College in Maine, will discuss his research on fruit fly genetics and why they matter. Purchase will explain why fruit flies are such useful subjects for research and their connection to Indiana. His research is not the genes of the fruit fly, but the so-called enhancers which turn those genes on and off, resulting in different phenotypes (observable characteristics).
He will also discuss new technology such as CRISPR-Cas9, which allows scientists to remove a particular gene or insert new genetic material at a predetermined location in DNA. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna began collaborating on this technology in 2011 and were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for it in 2020. It is in experimental use to treat genetic diseases such as sickle cell as well as to create strains of rice that accumulate lower levels of heavy metals and to create livestock with more desirable traits.
Purchase’s grandparents are Del and Letty Newkirk, and Del is a longtime member of Rotary. Nicholas has enjoyed many summers in Indiana with his grandparents. Nicholas’s research uses flies from the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center at IU, so he is excited to share how Indiana’s contributions to fruit fly research have changed the world and will continue to do so. He will move to Boston this summer to begin a job in biotechnology consulting.
Members of the community, especially those interested in exploring opportunities to participate in projects and to be of service to our community, are invited to attend the WFH session. Visit www.RotaryClubofBrownCounty.org and click on the “Contact us” URL to obtain a link to the Zoom meeting.
