September 14, 2026 — In a one-room genetics lab in Dutch Harbor, Abby Duffy was getting ready to load extracted fish DNA into what’s called a chip. It’s a clear, rectangular plate with rows of small wells separated by a silicone center.
“I like to make sure I’ve eaten recently so my hands are the least shaky they’re going to be,” she said. “Make sure my brain’s doing what it should be doing.”
Duffy is the lab manager at the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute’s Dutch Harbor location. The space is brightly lit, with tables and shelves lining the walls. Small incubators, a robotic pipetting machine, and a centrifuge sit on top of the tables.
Every week from June to October — the Bering Sea pollock B season — Duffy and her team collect genetic information from chum salmon that get scooped up in pollock nets as bycatch. They want to know how many of those fish are from Western Alaska.
“There are communities and people who really rely on those stocks for economics, for subsistence food, for cultural health,” Duffy said.
Read the full article at Alaska Public Media