Using genome annotation projects to teach eukaryotic gene structure and to engage students in genomics research

growing need of a workforce trained at applying statistics and computational tools to analyze large datasets. In addition, GEP students and their faculty mentors are eligible to be co-authors on the scientific publications that are based on their work. In this workshop, we provided an overview of the GEP community, a hands-on guided tour of our introductory curriculum aimed to teach gene structure, transcription, translation, and processing, and a step-by-step walkthrough that illustrates the protocol for annotating a protein-coding gene in Drosophila . Participants received information on how to join the GEP community and received training and resources to enable their implementations.