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Anish Sinha

Research

Through the Waksman Student Scholars Program at Rutgers, I worked on a real genomics project: investigating cloned gene sequences from the duckweed Landoltia punctata and figuring out what genes they came from.

Waksman Student Scholars Program

The Waksman Student Scholars Program brings high school students into an ongoing research project. Students work with cDNA clones from duckweed — isolating and sequencing them, then using bioinformatics tools to analyze the sequences, identify the genes they likely encode and prepare them for submission to public databases.

The organism

Landoltia punctata

Dotted duckweed

  1. Eukaryota
  2. Viridiplantae
  3. Streptophyta
  4. Magnoliopsida
  5. Liliopsida
  6. Araceae
  7. Lemnoideae
  8. Landoltia

Duckweeds are among the smallest and fastest-growing flowering plants. They float on still water, reproduce quickly and are studied for uses ranging from animal feed to biofuels — which makes understanding which genes they express worth the effort.

Genes I worked with

TIP2-1

Tonoplast intrinsic protein 2-1

A member of the aquaporin family — channel proteins in the membrane of the plant cell's vacuole that move water across it.

MIPS

Inositol-3-phosphate synthase

The enzyme that converts glucose-6-phosphate into inositol-3-phosphate, the first committed step in making inositol — a building block for signaling molecules and cell membranes in plants.

My involvement

  • Investigated cloned mRNA sequences from Landoltia punctata
  • Analyzed genetic sequences to identify likely gene products
  • Worked with sequences related to TIP2-1 and inositol-3-phosphate synthase
  • Co-authored a published GenBank sequence record (JZ992065)

What I learned

Real data is messy. A sequence read isn't an answer — it's evidence you have to check, trim and compare before you can say what it is.

Claims need support. Calling a sequence 'like' a known gene means being able to point to the alignment that justifies it, and being honest about where it doesn't match.

Science is collaborative and slow. A 366-base record is a small piece of a much larger project that many students and researchers contribute to.