BioBuilder’s Summer Research Program is the “speed dating” of biotechnology innovation!
“How so,” you ask? The SRP is an intensive two-week program in which high school scientists-in-training go from learning to designing to testing to optimizing their own bioengineering projects. That’s a lot of momentum in just two weeks!
Two sessions of the SRP were offered this summer. The first session was held from July 22 to August 2, and the second from August 12 to 23. A total of 32 students participated in this year’s SRP, traveling to Boston from:
- Arizona
- Connecticut
- Illinois
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- Vancouver, British Columbia
- Richmond, British Columbia
- Toronto, Ontario
Students gathered Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 4:00pm at the BioBuilder Learning Lab @ Ginkgo, a state-of-the-art bioengineering lab inside the Ginkgo Bioworks headquarters in Boston’s Seaport District.
Learning and Designing
The students spent half of each day in the classroom learning from industry-leading instructors and mentors. That was also when they formed teams and brainstormed bioengineering projects to develop.
These students are passionate about engineering biology to make the world a better place, as evidenced by the projects they took on:
- Easy and fast detection of cholera toxin in water
- Early detection and treatment of dangerous algal blooms
- “Pre-dinner” detection of PFAS in foods 😋
- Conversion of microplastics pollution into energy
- Pre-symptom detection of Parkinson’s Disease
- Reduction of bovine-generated methane gas emissions 🐮
- Reduction of allergic reaction to peanuts
Researching and Designing
With help from their expert instructors, students spent time discovering what was possible, what had already been done by others, and how to put all the pieces of their projects together into something useful, novel, and possible.
Testing and Optimizing
The teams then moved into the lab to test their designs and processes. This is where they gained hands-on lab skills and learned state-of-the-science assays and techniques, such as:
- Cell viability assays
- DNA purification
- Bacterial transformation
- PCR
- Sequence analysis
- Protein purification
- Enzymatic assays
Taking advantage of Boston's bioecosystem
With so many academic and industry leaders all around Boston, these summer students got to visit and hear from some of the world’s best.
Visits included lab tours and seminars with
- Ginkgo Bioworks
- Asimov
- MIT
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Students were also inspired to hear about the career paths and current research of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who made their way to the Learning Lab. Many thanks to
- Jake W
- Jenn R
- Mark C
- Patrick H
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Presenting and Celebrating!
The two-week intensives culminated with the teams sharing their bioengineering projects with their classmates, teachers and mentors, families, and more.
and behind it all...
is an incredible team who combine their talents as scientists, educators, and collaborators to run this intensive program. Three cheers for them all, and an extra high five to BioBuilder’s Education Specialist, Dr. Hiroko Kaczmarek, who coordinates and leads the charge.
Are you or someone you know interested in joining the fun next year? (Let’s be honest, who wouldn’t be?!) Contact BioBuilder for information about the 2025 Summer Research Program. You’ll be glad you did!
Device Dude
BioTechBuilder is the talk of the town, and the buzz just keeps growing!
Check out these recent highlights:
BioTechBuilder is a finalist for the 2024 Best of STEM awards! STEM educators will soon be voting on the winners in numerous categories, so stay tuned. Go BioTechBuilder!
This quote from one of the educators who judged the curriculum was a special one…
BioBuilder’s Dr. Natalie Kuldell and BCSI’s Angela Consani were recent guests on the Talking Techniques podcast. The topic was “Skills-based teaching and microcredentialing in STEM.” We insiders know that BioTechBuilder is the perfect combination of those two essentials for STEM education.
Continued thought leadership from BioBuilder’s Executive Director, Dr. Natalie Kuldell, was published in The Education Magazine. The article argues that students in secondary school should have access to great life science education. The BioTechBuilder curriculum may be the scalable solution for spreading this opportunity throughout the country.
"Rather than relying on individuals to make the switch later in life, we should be rethinking how we first teach science."
Want to learn more about BioTechBuilder? Check out this informative webpage from BioBuilder’s long-time partner, and BioTechBuilder distributor, Carolina Biological Supply Company.