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Virginia Tech Helps More than 10,000 Students Across the State Learn About Biotechnology

BLACKSBURG, Va., May 16, 2002 -- More than 10,000 middle and high school students in Virginia will have learned about biotechnology by the end of the current school year, thanks to equipment and assistance provided by Virginia Tech's Fralin Biotechnology Center.

In addition to 56 middle and high schools across the state, the Fralin Center also loaned equipment to four community colleges. Many of the schools borrowed several of the four specialized kits.

"Biotechnology is about science, but it's also about economic development opportunities for Virginia's communities and the potential for the creation of new cutting-edge companies that will need these very students as employees in the future," said Tracy Wilkins, director of the Fralin Center.

"Our equipment loan program is designed to familiarize our young people with the promise and limitations of biotechnology," he said. "At the same time we hope to interest a number of these bright young people to set their sights on an educational path that would prepare them for employment in this new industry."

To accomplish this, the center conducts training sessions for secondary school teachers and college instructors on a variety of laboratory techniques used in biotechnology. With that training, those teachers are eligible to borrow four laboratory kits that allow them to introduce to their students certain concepts and advanced laboratory techniques that are central to biotechnology.

By borrowing the kits, the teachers have access to laboratory equipment most schools cannot afford to purchase. They are also provided with most of the supplies they will use during experiments.

"The teachers who have borrowed our kits tell us their students really like the experiments because they are designed to get these concepts across in ways that are relevant to them and that are fun," said Kristi DeCourcy, the center's lab manager and manager of the equipment loan program.

The four types of kits loaned by the Fralin Center provide the equipment and supplies necessary to conduct experiments and teach concepts concerning DNA, column chromatography, immunology, and protein electrophoresis.

The experiments made possible with the kits teach students about DNA fingerprinting, the spread of diseases in a population, the relationship of different species through an examination of their proteins, and how and why scientists can separate individual components from a mixture.

The Fralin Center also loans other equipment when possible to help teachers with experiments they design themselves.

Fralin Center Equipment Loans - 2001-2002 School Year

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