Biotech students soak up info at symposium

EVIT biotechnology students learned all about nanotechnology and early cancer detection at the recent Mesa Community College Biotechnology Symposium.


High school and college biotechnology students from across the state attended the symposium at Mesa Community College. They participated in round table discussions with scientists and professionals in the biotechnology industry.

The EVIT biotechnology class had almost 100 percent participation: That's pretty great for a Saturday!

"Crime scene" in Biotechnology

I headed over to the biotechnology class earlier this week, and when I arrived, this is what greeted me:


Inside, there was a pretty gruesome murder scene, complete with bloody shoe prints:


The biotechnology class was hosting students from the MC10 class, teaching them about forensics and how to gather clues at a crime scene.


They talked about DNA and fingerprinting, and showed off some cool technology that can help create a sketch of a suspect:

It all very "CSI EVIT"!

Some lessons from biotechnology

I learned a lot during the biotechnology class today.

Biotech students were busy testing water samples from local restaurants, looking for evidence of E. coli bacteria. E. coli can sometimes make its way into restaurant beverages when ice has been handled with unclean hands, which I was not thrilled to learn.


The students also worked on a year-long transformation project in which they took a firefly's glow gene and inserted it into host bacteria, mass-producing the new gene, which glows green under certain lighting.


And I learned a bunch about genetically modified vs. organic produce. Here are some onion plants. I bet you can guess which side contains the genetically modified crop.