Senckenberg Symposium - October 2022

On the occasion of the inauguration of their new ancient and historical DNA laboratory, the Senckenberg museum in Dresden, Germany held a fascinating symposium on perspectives and challenges of historical DNA sequencing from insect museum specimens. Our group member Georg Kretzschmar visited the event and had the chance to listen to a large number of intriguing talks and to interact with many interesting participants.

While the analysis of ancient and historical DNA (paleogenomics) is an established method, it was still very insightful to learn from these highly regarded experts about the newest techniques and applications of DNA analysis from historical samples. We also think that many of them can be adapted to the new field of paleotranscriptomics ie, the investigation of microRNA from museum and permafrost samples. The knowledge gained will therefore help us to extract and analyze microRNA from collection specimens without having to catch rare living animals in remote locations.