Seventeen students and their teacher Wu Xiaolan from Suzhou Nanhuan Experimental Middle School recently pulled off a remarkable success in a domestically pioneering program designed to identify and classify butterflies using DNA barcodes. They presented their outcomes on Dec 17 at Cold Spring Harbor (CSH) Asia DNA Learning Center where the program was conducted for two months since October.

According to the students, their solution incorporates a set of DNA extraction, analysis and sequencing technologies that can help sort out butterfly samples and trace their genetic relationships in a more standardized and scientific way.

"DNA barcodes can be used to identify butterflies in any stages of their life cycles and analyze their family relationship even without complete samples," said one of the students.

"CSH Asia DNA Learning Center's DNA barcode technology provided potent scientific basis for the program, and their professional research approaches deeply impressed us," said Wu, who has been engaged in butterfly observation for many years and offered great help to the students under the program.