Generally, the first steps to starting a GIDAS club are to attend a miRcore camp, attend the GIDAS leadership conference in late summer, familiarize yourself with the GIDAS Care Package (essentially a large folder of resources in Google Drive with almost everything you will need to get your club running), find a club advisor (preferably a science teacher, biology teachers are even better), and start advertising your club and gaining members. Officializing your club will depend on the policies specific to your school’s administration.
Notify the GIDAS Support Committee Chair via email! They will help guide you through the process so you can get started as smoothly as possible and will be there to help answer your questions. The current Chair for the 2022-23 school year is Ally (a128wang@gmail.com).
MVP (miRcore Volunteer Program) is a student group under miRcore that meets virtually on weekends to learn and share about biology, genetics, and computer science and advocate for disease research and awareness. MVPers conduct group research to be presented at the annual Research Conference. Another component of MVP is the various committees that members can join and lead.
GIDAS (Genes in Diseases and Symptoms) Clubs are the high school branches of miRcore. They are school-based clubs that usually meet after school. Members learn about basic biology and computational biology tools, do their own research, and participate in the annual Genes and Health Contest and Research Conference. Members fundraise for microgrants toward researchers’ labs and advocate for disease awareness.
Generally, GIDAS leaders and members teach members about basic biology and computational biology tools during the first semester of the school year in preparation for the Genes and Health Contest. The second semester is usually dedicated toward research and writing scientific abstracts for the Research Conference. GIDAS branches also fundraise for microgrants throughout the year. GIDAS content is flexible and can incorporate member-led meetings, R coding, etc.
GIDAS clubs generally start at the beginning of each school year and operate until school ends, since they are school-based. It is recommended to start meetings around two weeks after school starts. Meetings are weekly or bi-weekly depending on the branch.
GIDAS leaders will have access to the Care Package, which includes all the resources they will need to help run the club. Because the material is miRcore copyrighted and exclusive to GIDAS leaders, they must first fill out a form with an agreement to use materials responsibly.