Bella

Bella
Littleton High School
Littleton, MA

Mentors: 
Alicia Vaca, Benoit Molinie & Victoria Leong
Broad Technology Space

 

Bella spent her summer challenging a long-standing assumption in genomics: that rootless hair shafts contain only highly fragmented nuclear DNA and therefore have limited value for modern genomic analysis. If intact genomic DNA could reliably be recovered from the shaft itself, researchers could potentially collect DNA from animals through shed or brushed hair rather than more invasive blood or tissue sampling.

Working in the Broad Technology Space and in connection with Darwin's Ark, Bella investigated whether previous failures to obtain high-quality hair-shaft DNA reflected the biology of hair itself, or limitations in existing extraction methods. The team hypothesized that the keratin-rich outer structure of hair may act as a barrier and that improved digestion and extraction could reveal intact DNA still present inside the shaft.

Bella worked with hair from multiple mammalian species and gained exposure to microscopy, DAPI staining, sample preparation, keratin digestion, DNA extraction, TapeStation analysis, library construction, amplification, and sequencing workflows. Microscopy provided evidence of nuclei within hair shafts, while TapeStation measurements allowed the team to examine the size and quality of recovered DNA fragments.

The results were striking: the optimized approach recovered hair-shaft DNA fragments exceeding 60,000 base pairs, supporting the hypothesis that useful high-molecular-weight genomic DNA can persist within mammalian hair shafts.

Bella learned how microscopy, DNA extraction, fragment-size quality control, library preparation, and sequencing fit together to test whether a nontraditional biological sample can support genomic analysis.

Bella's findings could have broad implications for animal genomics. A reliable non-invasive source of genomic DNA could make studies easier for pets, wildlife, and animals that are difficult to sample directly. Future library construction and sequencing will help determine how well the recovered DNA performs in whole-genome applications.

For Bella, the science was only one part of what made the summer memorable. She described BSSP as an experience she will “cherish forever” and credited her mentors, cohort, and the Broad Technology Space with making it her “best summer ever.”