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Friday, July 16, 2010
Kids explore careers in stem cell research at UWMadison — With lab coats on and pipettes in hand, scientists in Madison begin harvesting embryoid bodies, tiny balls of cells that are ready to start differentiating into specific cell types. These scientists, who are studying cutting-edge stem cell technology, just happen to be a bit shorter than you might expect. This week, 12 Wisconsin middle school students and 12 students from the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta participated in Generation Acceleration, a camp in which the students got their (latex-gloved) hands wet working on a variety of stem cell activities in the lab. "We want to educate and train the next generation of scientists," said Rupa Shevde, the director of outreach for the Morgridge Institute for Research, the nonprofit biomedical research institute affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison that ran the camp. "Studies have shown when you engage students with science at a younger age, they are more likely to explore a variety of careers later." In the lab, the students perfected their molecular biology lab skills, then worked on neural and cardiac cell differentiation activities and in a cytogenetics lab where they looked at fluorescently stained human chromosomal DNA. Students were awed as they looked through the microscope at stem cells that had become cardiac cells. Every second or two, thousands of cells contracted and relaxed in unison, just like a heart does. The students worked with both human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent cells, and learned the differences between the two. Human embryonic stem cells, or ES cells, are derived from embryos and have the potential to differentiate into any cell type in the human body. UW is a leader in the emerging field of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, that are adult skin cells that have been reprogrammed to a point where they can differentiate into specific cell types. "ES cells are the gold standard, but we're finding iPS cells are behaving almost exactly the same way," Shevde said. With cardiac cells, for example, she said, they could not detect differences in the lab between embryonic-induced cardiac cells or iPS-induced ones.
The learning did not stop out of the lab, where teams of students competed in some intense stem cell-themed trivia contests or attended UW's Wonders of Physics show. They even wrote their own stem cell rap, highlighting the origins of stem cell research at UW and how stem cells are used and studied there. "I wanted to come here because I knew stem cells are a controversial topic and I wanted to know why some people want to use stem cells and some don't," said Mariah Ortega-Carr, an eighth-grader at Spring Harbor Middle School in Madison. She added that the participants attended weekly Saturday meetings for the past few months to prepare for the stem cell camp. Added aspiring biomedical engineer Arsene Lakpa, an eighth-grader at the Ron Clark Academy, "I was inspired to come here because I really enjoy science, and I knew this was a great opportunity to pursue my career." He said students from his school also had weekly meetings they had to attend before coming to Madison. The Wisconsin students at the camp were selected from the PEOPLE program, an on-campus summer session that works to advance the academic achievements of students of color or from low-income families. The camp was in addition to the three weeks they spent in the PEOPLE program. The Atlanta students were selected by Ken Townsel, a science teacher at the Ron Clark Academy. "I told the students what they stood a chance to learn and gain from the experience," he said. "The students that saw the potential of (the camp) and came to all the meetings" were selected to participate, he added.
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