Summer school for area high school students

August 8, 2008 – The CDB held a pair of single day courses for local high students interested in the life sciences on August 5 and 7, building on the success of last year’s summer school initiative.

Students learning how to use microscopes in the Yonemura lab

Each day’s program featured a talk by Shigenobu Yonemura, head of the CDB’s Electron Microscopy Unit, followed by a visit to his lab, as well as a chance to do some hands-on bench work (staining cultured cells by immunofluorescence) and a tour of the Kobe Medical Industry research park where the CDB is located. Yonemura’s lecture laid out some of the actual work that takes place in a research lab, as well as the thinking that lies behind it.

A student trying his hand at pipetting, a technique for transferring precise amounts of solutions

26 students from throughout the Kansai region, all of whom applied for spots through an open call on the Center’s website, joined the event and experienced firsthand aspects of biological science in a new way that complements what they had learned from textbooks and classroom instruction.