Getting to Play With DNA

News
 

HHS Hosts Annual Biotech Symposium

By AMELIA BRUST


Daily
News- Record-3/21/15

HARRISONBURG
— Even though the division’s schools were closed Friday, Harrisonburg High School was still buzzing with biology students. They were there to get hands- on experience in the lab as part of the 22nd annual Shenandoah Valley Biotechnology Symposium for Central Virginia, hosted by the Governor’s STEM Academy.

In addition to HHS, Myron Blosser, co- director of the academy, counted 520 students from 11 schools around the Valley, including Eastern Mennonite, Broadway and Turner Ashby high schools.

Students were given an opportunity to take part in seminars given by William Nierman of the J. Craig Venter Institute, a Rockville, Md., center that focuses on genetic research, and James Madison University biology professor, Raymond Enke.





Albemarle High School sophomores Ashley Johnson (left) and Sabryn Dotson use a pipetter during the Shenandoah Valley Biotechnology Symposium at Harrisonburg High School on Friday.

Daniel Lin / DN-R

 

Divided into groups and presented different techniques for isolating and identifying DNA, the students also were tasked with either diagnosing a disease or observing genetically modified ingredients in food.

“ I wanted to have a good mixture of learning current concepts and doing current concepts,” Blosser said.

Most of the students had been unable to do such experiments before because of the lack of resources for biotechnology lessons at a high school level, he said.

In the labs, students also worked with professors from Bridgewater College and Virginia Tech. Carolina Biological Supply Co. of Burlington, N. C., supplied gels, dyes and DNA samples.

After some instruction from JMU professor Ken Roth, EMHS students Ives Deng, Jason Yu, Colin Dutt, Joshua Stapleton and Wyatt Bollinger each took a shot at practicing the experiment.

“ It’s pretty easy,” said Dutt, a 14- year- old freshman, as he carefully injected a gel block with dye.

As Pedro Moura, a senior scientist from Merck & Co., explained, the goal was to isolate the DNA of a father and his three children to see which offspring shared his “genetic predisposition” to colon cancer. While the technique is common in medical diagnostics, Moura said, “the application of this lab can be universal” among the sciences.

Down the hall, Kristi De-Courcy of the Fralin Life Science Institute at Virginia Tech taught students to isolate the genetically modified ingredients in common snack foods. HHS AP biology classmates Rozda Askari, Nicholas Deutsch, Paul Weiss, Nicole Downey and Marjorie Bonga were excited to sample Fritos corn chips and Trix cereal.

“We’re just deciding what to test,” said Bonga, a 16-year-old junior.

Askari, 18, a senior, and Weiss, 17, a junior, said they were excited to attend the symposium, noting that none of them take part in the school’s STEM academy,. Still, they had studied biotechnology lessons in their classes.

By coming to the symposium, Blosser said, participants could experiment by doing “much like what a doctor would do.”

Contact Amelia Brust at 574 6293 or





Tim Bloss, a James Madison University associate biology professor, instructs students during Friday’s Shenandoah Valley Biotechnology Symposium.

Daniel Lin / DN-R

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Published: Monday, March 23, 2015

Last Updated: Thursday, November 2, 2023

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