From the Stem Cell workshop at the Bio-Link Summer Fellows Forum 2011
presenters: Edie Kaeuper, Carin Zimmerman, Golnar Afshar, Samantha Croft, & Bill Woodruff
2. Stem Cell Pipeline Program Classes are designed for high school students BTEC 5– seminar class BTEC 6– stem cell class Students start earning credit to certificates and AS degrees Students are recruited by their high schools. High schools are recruited by the community college.
3. What are the next steps Want to test at two sites Alamance Community College and Austin Community College. Will create two more levels of curriculum so that the course will be tailored to inspire students to pursue scientific careers. Already seeing high school students choosing to go to CCSF and into the biotech program in larger numbers.
5. BTEC 5 Mixed class—college students and high school students are enrolled Class enrollment—usually 40-60 students total. Guest speakers from industry and academic positions present a lecture about their job and/or career path.
6. Evaluation Students must write a 1-2 page summary of each presentation, using key words/phrases from the presentation. In addition, there is an open note final exam.
7. Some past guest speakers John Murphy, Bayer Healthcare “Molecular Biology and Protein expression“ Maurizio Franzini, Exelixis“Small molecules in drug discovery” Shannon Behrman, UCSF “A quality control program of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)” Joseph Gold, Geron“Stem Cells for Diagnostic and Therapeutic Applications” Martin Doyle, Life Technologies “The Business of Biotech” Dianna Lester-Zeiner, Amgen “Drug discovery in Neuroscience” VishwanathLingappa, Prosetta“A new approach to the development of antiviral drugs” Karl Sutphin, Genentech “Dock to Stock- The Large Scale Manufacturing Process” Luna Abdallah, UCSF “Exploring a career in basic bioscience research” Deana Arnold, Pacific Biosciences “Careers in Intellectual Property” Paolo Vatta, Life Technologies “Bioinformatics and genomics”
9. “The job as a business consultant/CEO for biotech companies seems to be the most interesting and exciting. The most unique aspect of her job is that she is able to work internationally. I want to be able to work in different parts of the world where the unexpected happens. She explained the peculiar market of China in her lecture. This is what got me excited. I want to explore China’s markets even further. Creating a business and making deals with other companies seems challenging. I like being challenged and I believe I have the qualities such as being honest and having the confidence to make things happen.”
10. “The environmental monitoring technician job is the job I like the best. Her job is to curb the impact of human involvement in the environment to try and conserve environmental resources. I’d love to do something like that because I care a lot about the environment. Plus, I wouldn’t have to sit in a lab all day; I would go out and collect water or dirt samples to test for pollution. Also, the job combines two interesting subjects, biotechnology and environmental science.”
11. “Out of all the professions of the speakers that I listened to this semester, the one I was most interested in was research/drug development at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. The fact that you can create a molecule (Kogenate) that is even better than the ones found in your body astounds and impresses me. Think of other possibilities that we can discover and create. I seriously hope that the future of manufactured molecules can flourish.”
12. “ The job I would like the best would be the job of studying and researching cancer/ stem cells. Stem cells and cancer cells interest me because not a lot is known about them. They are also a very broad topic in the health industry, and can be utilized to create many job opportunities. Stem cells are also extremely helpful to the medical world as its regenerative properties could be used to save many lives, whole understanding cancer cells better to protect and restore people’s lives. Perhaps with extreme and extensive research, we could someday allow human kind to regenerate body cells after traumatic or surgical events and rid the world of many diseases.”
15. Introduction to basic cell culture techniques Defrosting cells from frozen stocks Feeding and Passaging cells in culture Counting cells and calculating concentrations Serial dilution and plating cells Freezing and storage
16. Lab Exercises Aseptic technique and serial dilution practice Count and plate specific number of cells Live and dead cell identification using fluorophores Survival assay Transfection Stem cell differentiation
27. Alamance Community College Ease of implementation 23 years of teaching cell culture New, well equipped labs (EVOS +) Supportive administration High school student recruitment No local HS with a biotech academy Each class will be recruited from all 6 county HS ElonUniv summer academy, posters, HS visits