Reflection from emerging methods module
The emerging methods we discussed this week are pretty interesting. Some of them seem like they have a potential to become really powerful technology in the future. The ones seem the most revolutionary to me are microfluidic chips, mRNA, and nanopore sequencing. I am excited to hear more from Dr. Karen James about her ideas for using nanopore sequencing in her research.
I am wondering about the stable isotope slides and how they tie into this conversation about eDNA. Are you proposing that we should be able to measure the isotope ratios of nucleotides, similar to the way we can look at other biomolecules? I have never considered this possibility, but I am now considering it. I would not be surprised if it was possible in the future. I am now trying to learn about the strengths and limitations of compound specific isotopes, and what they can tell about diet and and basal carbon source.
Lastly, I thought it was interesting to learn about LAMP. I still don’t fully understand the argument for using this approach in place of a PCR based approach for species detection.