This week, students in four Dothan, Ala., schools will take tiny punches from leaves of peanut plants they’ve grown in class so those punches can be genetically sequenced at Huntsville’s HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology and the results returned for further study.

If that doesn’t sound like Alabama schools to you, the Wiregrass and the Rocket City research institute say look again.

Genetic research and education were HudsonAlpha’s twin missions when the center opened 15 years ago in April 2008. The Wiregrass partnership, named after the area’s nickname, is a result of Alabama leaders reaching out for a piece of the genetic future for their crops and children.

The Wiregrass isn’t the only one moving further into genetics. The institute’s Center for Plant Science & Sustainable Agriculture has partnerships with scientists, food processors, breeders, and seed repositories around the nation.

“In May, we’re going to take the students their results,” says Kelly East, an Auburn microbiology graduate now educational outreach vice president at HudsonAlpha. Those results will be the genetic code of each plant.

“They’re going to find out, ‘What traits does my peanut plant have? How many are good traits that we want? How good is the rest of its ‘recipe book’? How much is the elite variety we’re wanting to keep?” East said.

The students will help decide which plants will live on to be crossed with other plants. “And our scientists are going to take their recommendations and move forward with them. So, the students are actually participating in that authentic research work,” East said.

Research and education were HudsonAlpha’s twin missions when it opened 15 years ago in April 2008. The Wiregrass partnership is the result of Dothan leaders reaching out to get a piece of this genetic future. The city, area and institute are partners now in projects to grow better crops, bring more economic development and produce students “excited about the opportunities in genomics and biotech.”

Back in Huntsville, HudsonAlpha is marking its 15th year with a new series of free public events called HudsonAlpha U. Several hundred people registered for the first program in February talking about recent discoveries in genetics.

The next program May 9 is “pharmaco genetics,” the study of how an individual’s DNA affects the body’s processing of different medications. More “personalized” medicine is the goal of this research. An online way to hear this talk is planned.

On Sept. 12, the program is “about the genetics of ancestry and understanding how you can use genetics to understand ancestry,” East said.