Eleni Christoforou is an early career researcher affiliated with the Oikotoxicologia group of the Cyprus University of Technology. For her STSM titled “Biodiversity of coastal meiofaunal species of Cyprus”, she was hosted at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in Leiden, Netherlands.
At the host institution, Eleni had the invaluable experience to participate in a meiofauna workshop with taxonomy experts from whom she learned sampling techniques, species isolation and some important aspects of species identification. She also practiced identifying meiofauna species from samples collected in Cyprus and proceeded learning and practicing molecular barcoding techniques. She was also introduced to bioinformatics pipelines for barcoding and metabarcoding which she used for data analysis. None of the obtained sequences were in current databases which could be promising for the identification of new species which would have potential for uses in biotechnology. Also, these results can facilitate our undertesting of the meiofauna communities of Cyprus.
The STSM was a very valuable experience for Eleni as she was introduced with experts in the field of meiofauna research. This can lead to future collaboration and the creation of fascinating research projects.
Photo 1: Meiofauna sample collection from a sandy beach in Netherlands.
Photo 2: A gastrotrich as seen from a microscope camera and a computer software.
Picture 3: Laboratory setup for meiofauna isolation into 96-well plates for barcoding.
Picture 4: Use of magnetic microbeads and magnetic rack for DNA-purification.
