Beaver Genome Project

Thank you Beaver Nation!  We were successful in raising the funds to SeqTheBeav! 

For additional updates to this project, see http://cgrb.oregonstate.edu/beaver-genome-project

Seq the Beav!

From September 16 to October 30. 2015, OSU will be running a crowd-sourcing campaign to fund a genome project for OSU's mascot the American Beaver.

The human genome project has dramatically increased our knowledge of human biology and opened the door to many new medical treatments. Genome projects for plants and animals such as wheat, soybeans, horses and dogs has similarly expanded our knowledge of these organisms. However, Oregon State’s mascot, the American Beaver, as yet has no genome project! OSU’s Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing is setting out to change that. A genome project for Benny the Beaver would greatly increase our knowledge of this industrious engineer, and the benefits it contributes to Oregon’s forest and stream ecosystems. The project would also raise awareness among the children and grownups of the Beaver Nation about the contributions that genome science and OSU’s researchers make to understanding our environment.

The aim of the crowd-sourcing campaign is to fund Benny’s genome project (about $30,000 is needed) from many small donations from members and friends of the Beaver Nation. These contributions would be used to fund the Beaver Genome Project, which would be carried out by OSU’s  Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing.  

Your donations will be used to pay for reagents, reagent kits, sequencing costs and technician time directly utilized in sequencing Filbert's DNA and RNA.

The campaign's official theme song:  SONG  and  WORDS

A VIDEO from the campaign's official beaver expert, Vanessa Petro, Wildlife Biologist, Forest Ecosystems & Society