Published: April 09, 2009 11:12 am      

Biotech class puts theory into reality at WRI

As a junior in the biotechnology program at Greater Johnstown Career and Technology Ccenter, I have been given many opportunities not usually available to other high school students.

Last year, I had the opportunity to work on a hands-on biotechnology research project with Lampire Biological Laboratories. We worked on purifying rabbit serum using ammonium sulfate precipitation to determine the level of saturation that will yield the highest purity with the best recovery.

Once we completed our experiment, we put our research and results into

a PowerPoint presentation and presented it to the Lampire Biological Laboratories staff.

Then we toured Lampire’s bio-processing laboratory and animal facility in Bedford.

This experience was both fun and educational. It gave me the encouragement I needed to pursue a career in the biotechnology field.

This year, I was given a second opportunity, but this time we moved our adventures forward and are actually going to Windber Research Institute and completing a project in its lab.

This project will continue throughout the current school year and into next year.

Windber Research Institute’s helpful employees welcomed us with open arms.

From learning about -180 degree Celsius tissue banks to simple PCR, the students of career and technology center’s biotechnology program can realize that what we have learned in the classroom is actually being used in a real lab.

We hope that by the end of this year we will have developed a hypothesis to research next year.

Right now we are just getting comfortable with the surroundings of the lab.

We believe that our trips to Windber Research Institute will open our eyes to so much more.

This class has greatly exceeded my expectations.