Developer of ground-breaking e-DNA water testing kits pays it forward
Alumnus Dr Shaun Wilkinson is the founder and CEO of Wilderlab, Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading environmental DNA (eDNA) testing laboratory. The company has generously donated valuable water sampling kits and DNA sequencing analysis to a student researcher at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
The Wilderlab eDNA Award, being offered for the first time this year, will support a postgraduate student with eDNA testing costs for 24 samples to assist their research related to ecology, conservation, biodiversity, or restoration ecology.
For Wilderlab founder Shaun Wilkinson, who received several scholarships during his university studies, this is a way of giving back to help other people with their learning.
“They really helped me, not just financially, but also in that it’s really nice to know other people are supporting your work.”
Going from head chef at a popular bistro to founding an award-winning eDNA testing laboratory may seem like a huge career shift, but Shaun insists it’s “just like cooking but with tiny pots.”
His journey to studying science at Victoria University of Wellington led to achieving first class Honours in Marine Biology, followed by a PhD in Ecology and Biodiversity with Professor Simon Davy’s Marine Symbiosis and Coral Reef Biology Group, known as the ‘Davy Lab’.
Shaun says he has very fond memories of that time with several field trips to Lord Howe Island which he describes as “magic”.
In 2016 Shaun was awarded a prestigious Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, to carry out eDNA surveys of the understudied coral reefs of Timor-Leste.
Realising that there was no commercial eDNA service available in New Zealand, Shaun set up Miramar-based Wilderlab on his return from Timor.
With the goal of providing a quicker and cheaper service than existing laboratories, he developed user-friendly eDNA sampling kits and a rapid, cost-effective sequencing service that allows a revolutionary 24-hour turnaround.
When living things move through an environment, they shed tiny traces of themselves such as skin, scales, feathers, or mucous that contain their genetic material.
From just a few cups of water, eDNA testing can recognise the genetic signatures present, which are then matched to a reference database to identify the species.
The public became aware of the potential of this technology through the wastewater testing carried out to identify COVID-19.
Wilderlab’s compact and easy-to-use eDNA kits don’t need any specialised training or equipment and have been shown to provide consistent results between users so that samples are comparable.
The small light-weight samples don’t have to be kept cold and can be posted or couriered to the Wellington lab, with encapsulated filters minimising the risk of contamination between samples.
Using their comprehensive reference database and purpose-built software tailored for Aotearoa’s unique fauna and flora, Wilderlab can identify thousands of species of fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, plants, algae, fungi, bacteria, and other organisms.
This innovation has made eDNA technology more widely available to the public, allowing people to monitor the health of our rivers, lakes, and oceans more easily. Wilderlab, the supreme award winner at the 2022 NZ Biosecurity Awards, has developed an indexing system called the TICI that incorporates the genetic signatures across an ecosystem to provide an overall health score.
On advice to current science students, Shaun suggests keeping an open mind is the key.
“Try and learn as many skills as you can as things are moving so quickly in these fields.”
“Don’t try to become a complete expert in just one area and include non-science skills like organising yourself and using AI technology.”