Raab Family Chair and Professor of Biology Damhnait McHugh has received an interdisciplinary training grant of $4,300. She will spend several weeks during her sabbatical leave in fall 2026 working with experts in the NSF-funded ancient biomolecular lab in New York City to become proficient in ancient DNA analyses of marine shelled organisms.
The AMNH AbLab is a unique multi-user space where hosts provide access to multiple types of equipment and consumable materials for on-site trainees. McHugh’s goal is to set up a clean space to work with ancient DNA at ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø, to train her students in consistently successful techniques, and to provide preliminary data to support an upcoming NSF proposal that expands on a Picker-ISI funded research project with Paul Harnik (earth and environmental geosciences) and Rebecca Metzler (physics and astronomy). That project includes analysis of aDNA for historical population analyses of clams across spatial and temporal environmental gradients across the Gulf of Mexico.