Our Crowdfunding Groups
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
Benny, Filbert and their entire family are thankful for your help in sequencing their DNA.
Intiviation to tour our cutting-edge genomics lab with the Director, Dr. Brett Tyler. Afterwards, join Dr. Tyler and others in a private reception with those who sequenced the beaver's genome.
Have you or someone you love immortalized in science; name a gene after them! Donate $1000 or more and we will name one of the newly discovered genes from the beaver genome for you.
