PRIMUTANT was developed by a team of undergraduate and graduate students from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Alberta under the supervision of Sue-Ann Mok and Dean Schieve. The project initially started in 2020 as a way for students to apply their new programming skills learned when labs were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the developers saw the potential value to academic labs that were interested in creating economical arrayed mutagenesis libraries but did not know where to start. Since then the primer program has been succesfully integrated into a high-throughput cloning pipeline. The protocol for the cloning pipeline is published at STAR Protocols. Click here to link to the protocol.


For any questions or concerns about PRIMUTANT, do not hesitate to contact any member of the Student Team of Developers or Supervisors. Contact information for each member is provided below.

Kerry Sun, Current lead for program development and management

Current Position: Graduate student, Mok lab, University of Alberta

email: ksun4_at_ualberta.ca

Most rewarding part of project: Finally figuring out conditions to make the protocol work.

Justin Kim, Team co-leader for initial program

Current Position: Dentistry student, University of Alberta

email: jk2_at_ualberta.ca

Most rewarding part of project: Experiencing the close collaboration and communication between students and supervisors to brainstorm, problem-solve and create innovative solutions.

Helen Tang, Team co-leader for initial program

Current Position: Recently graduated MSc in Biochemistry, Schultz lab, University of Alberta

email: hst_at_ualberta.ca

Most rewarding part of project: Working together with a superb cast of team members who each provided their unique perspectives and solutions for the given question.

Ghazaleh Eskandari-Sedighi

Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, MaCauley lab, University of Alberta

email: ghazaleh_at_ualberta.ca

Most rewarding part of project: What I primarily loved about this project was to overcome a long lasting fear of learning python. The settings established by Dr. Mok greatly enhanced the whole learning process for me. Additionally, started working on this project during the very first hit of pandemic lock downs. Those were very stressful days, and this project and meeting up with the passionate teammates I had was super rewarding and fulfilling. I enjoyed every bit of working with this amazing and dynamic team.

Dean Schieve, Supervisor

Current Position: Communities of Interest Coordinator, Information Services & Technology, University of Alberta

email: dschieve_at_ualberta.ca

Most rewarding part of project: "What a great team! I'm inspired by their patience, focus and commitment to the process."

Sue-Ann Mok, Supervisor

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Biochemistry, University of Alberta

email: sueann_at_ualberta.ca

Most rewarding part of project: Seeing the look of joy on a student's face when they tell me they have just solved a coding problem.