Summer School Lab Offers Elements of Discovery

Interested in plasmids or electrophoresis? How about something simple like the structure of DNA, or maybe gene amplification?

The topics may sound like the stuff of doctorate-level studies, but they are part of the curriculum offered this summer to Simi Valley high school students through a program developed and predominantly funded by Amgen, the biotechnology giant based in Thousand Oaks.

The course, called the Amgen Plasmid Fusion Laboratory Class, will be taught over an intensive three-week stretch for four hours a day.

Students had been learning pieces of the technology through segments in their regular science classes. But the new summer school program is designed to give students more time to learn the cutting-edge field in depth.

Teachers and administrators in the Simi Valley Unified School District said they have no doubt that students will give up summer days for a crack at the Amgen lab.

“My bet is they will have to turn kids away,” said Susan Parks, assistant superintendent of the Simi Valley Unified School District. “People sometimes underrate students’ desire, ability and capacity to learn.”

Amgen developed the curriculum and provided training, materials and lab equipment for the class, which will be taught this summer by Royal High School science teacher Una Sinsheimer.

“We teach genetics as part of our regular curriculum,” Sinsheimer said. “This is taking it a step further; it’s applying what we teach.”

Amgen’s traveling laboratory and materials are available to teachers throughout Ventura County and Southern California for two weeks at a time during the traditional school year. Students must have completed college preparatory-level classes in biology or chemistry with a grade B or higher to enroll in the Plasmid Fusion Lab class.

But Sinsheimer said she wants to give students the opportunity to spend a little more time on the complicated science they are learning, so she asked Amgen and the school district to help her establish the intensive summer program.

“I don’t think it’s workable for us to try to do it in the two-week period we could have the equipment,” she said. “The students would still be in the process of learning genetics. This way, I think they will be eager and successful in learning the material.”

Newbury Park High School science teacher Hugh Nelson helps coordinate the mobile lab throughout the county and trains the science teachers who teach the course.

The curriculum for both the two-week, school-year program and the summer course includes a basic gene cloning experiment in which students use recombinant DNA techniques. From one bacterium, students remove a small segment of DNA called a plasmid, which contains a gene that encodes resistance to an antibiotic. Then they transfer that plasmid to another bacterium that has been unable to grow in the presence of the antibiotic.

Then, they analyze the resulting bacterium by testing its resistance to the drug.

“So they are using several techniques commonly employed in modern molecular laboratories,” said Lynne Connell, a spokeswoman for Amgen.

She said officials at Amgen, who began the course six years ago, believe funneling energy, equipment and money into education is one way to ensure that bright young people keep coming into the biotechnology field.

“Allowing students to gain hands-on experience in biotechnology encourages students to consider a career in sciences,” she said. “Amgen’s goal is to allow these students experiences to gain an understanding of the applicability to the real world.”

Carla Kurachi, a Simi district board member and a career counselor at Cal State Northridge, applauded the course.

“We tell students at Northridge the more science and math you can take, the more career opportunities you’ll have.”