As an undergraduate who is undertaking stem cell research in my honours year, I find this conference opportunity rare, especially when conferences usually welcome pHD students or level above. It is a fantastic opportunity where I can meet like-minded peers and more senior level scientists which I can gain insight of how becoming a scientific researcher is like in a daily basis. It is a perfect chance for me to build up connections as well while I am young! Besides, as a student who originates from Hong Kong and doing tertiary study in Australia, I often discover there are different course structures between countries/regions, and it is fun to appreciate the differences. I can meet students across different parts of the world, and learn how they approach science. I can then reflect upon whether there are practices worthwhile to learn from! At last, I realise this conference is a multidisciplinary conference, meaning not only I get to meet life science and medicine fellows, I might even talk to researchers from other disciplines. This is pivotal, because I also come from a multidimension research group in Sydney, I believe the future trend of doing science will be multidisciplinary. Thank you!

Children's Medical Research Institute, affiliate of the University of Sydney

My project focused on the following theme: CRISPR/Cas 9 gene knock-in.
In details, we are comparing the robustness between using homology independent targeted insertion (HITI) universal donor template (UDT) and using indel frequency for screening the most accurate single guide RNA (sgRNA) in gene knock-in for NF2 gene. UDT works since there is a non-specific sgRNA binds to the plasmid itself to direct self cleavage, so that the targeted sgRNA for NF2 gene plus saCas9 and GFP sequence can be released, and thus integrated into the designated site in NF2. The % of GFP cells signal is not only used to confirm for successful gene knock-in, but also quantitative analysis show how specific to target site that sgRNA candidate is.
We hypothesize using HITI UDT to screen for most accurate sgRNA is more versatile than using indel frequency, which indels are conventionally used to test for sgRNA candidate for gene knock-out. Moreover, the "beauty" of using a UDT means the method is transferable to testing sgRNA in other gene(s). Our result showed that sgRNA screening using UDT by employing the HITI approach provide a more accurate indication of knock-in efficiencies compared to using indel frequency. Thank you!