Thursday, February 29th
Dr. Matthews and I have successfully extracted the DNA, sent it to a lab with a DNA Spec, and will soon recieve results about the clarity of the specimen. Since we sent both a nail and feather DNA sample, we hope to also learn which is best and continue using that material moving forward. After we return from break we will begin working with mRNA, since we realized cDNA will not acheive the desired results, and over break I will continue working on searching for strong primers.
Thursday, February 8th
Since the last post, I have started working on many genetic portions of my project, including extracting feathers from a healthy parakeet, and getting in contact with one of Dr. Matthews' geneticist friend whose wife will be making our primers. We also started planning how we will be testing the DNA, Dr. Matthews already ordered a kit and is also looking at other matierals we might need online. My next steps are to bring the DNA into class and run the testing. One challenge so far is that we are unsure if whether the feathers will get us the DNA we need, but since I plucked them close to the breast area I hope that it works. I also clipped a little portion of the bird's nail so we might use that if need be.
Thursday, January 11th
This month I plan to start working with Dr. Matthews on the lab part of my project. Since we have narrowed down the gene to where this mutation likely occured, we tried to find an online sequence but were unsuccessful for some reason. After that, we reached out to Dr. Matthews geneticist frienda and asked if she could help us, but she was unable to which just means Dr. Matthews and I will have to do it ourselves. Since I am in Genetics Lab this semester that is not too much of a problem, but I will schedule a few meetings with her so we can get a start on things before her maternity leave. We will have to make our own primers, do PCR testing, and ultimately use Inej's feathers to compare her DNA to that of a healthy parakeet. The first action item will be to schedule a meeting with Dr. Matthews as soon as possible and the next will be to start planning how we will test and if there are any extra materials we need.
Thursday, December 7th
There has been a lot of progress since my last post! I got in contact with Inte Onsman himself, however he was not too helpful because there was no additional genetic information that was not on his website. However, I did find a ridiculously helpful article that compared parakeet and falcon genomes with those of chickens and zebra finches. I was able to discover that the chromosome that contains a similar mutation in chickens is on their chromosome 3, and the homologous chromosome in parakeets is chromosome 2, because it contains the 17th and 3rd chromosomal genetic components of the chicken.
My next plans are meeting with Dr. Matthews this week and discussing with her potential ways I could go more in depth with my genetic research and how I could later in the future sequence Inej's chromosomal information.
Saturday, November 16th
My progress has been figuring out the closest ancestors to budgies; falcons. I have found multiple studies on their similarities, however no information on feather disformaties in falcons, and the ones in chickens are not as similar. I have been reading loads of articles and finding old studies but not too much information that is useful.
I have also reached out to many breeders all over the US and even in other countries, but have not had any similar cases. I have also reached out to veterinarians, but again, no similar issues. My plans for the near future are continuing to reach out to people, including the author of the original website: Inte Onsman. I also plan to continue researching similar issues in chickens and falcolns.
Wednesday, October 18th
This week I have been working on my Background Research presentation in addition to continuing my research. For my presentation, I went into detail about different parakeet feather mutations, I talked about how parakeet genetics works, and I plan to also talk a lot about how genetic mutations work in general and things to keep in mind about my bird which will be useful when I present more complex scientific proof later on. In my presentation I first talk about parakeets so it is more fun and easy to understand, then I will go into the science and genetics of my project, and then finish off tying all of that together and talking about the genetic differences in my bird.
Research progress: I have been in contact with avian breeders, and so far only one has been of use; who told me her crested parakeets had a clutch of babies who lost their crest for some reason, and one of the babies could not walk or perch and ended up passing away. Dr. Matthews and I also talked about foot problems with my bird, and with Silkie chickens, which leads me to believe the genes for feet and feathers are not actually far from each other on a chromosome in birds.
Thursday, September 28th
I began my journey by looking through an article Dr. Matthews (a genetics teacher at Emma Willard) sent to me about the classic pigmentation mutation in parakeets. I met with Mr. Calos to go over what I understood in that article and scheduled a second meeting with Dr. Matthews to follow up on basic genetic terms I should understand. I reached out to Parakeet Haven Aviary and Rhonda's Aviary in the meantime and explained my project with hopes of them having experience about a bird with a similar mutation to mine. Ideally some sort of similar bird from a proffesional breeder would have an actual pedigree tree I could look into. I have also been doing research of my own to look into the color mutation that my bird could have had because prehaps it could be linked to something like low melanin which could also connect to her health issues. I created a document and linked possible color mutations she could have, and other articles about color mutations I want to look into later. My next goals are to keep reaching out to breeders like Parakeet Haven Aviary which actually breed feather mutations like helicopter budgies in hopes they had some experience with a bird like mine and also keep an eye out for old show budgie files that might also hold pedigree information on a mutated bird.