A Level Biologists go Tissue Engineering

The Year 13 Biologists and aspiring Year 12 Medics embarked on a trip to Southampton University Hospital to visit the pioneering Tissue Engineering Unit.

The purpose of the trip was to gain first-hand knowledge of the various practices that exist in state of the art working laboratories. It was of particular use to the current and prospective A2 Biologists as there was a direct link between the practical skills being utilised in the laboratories and the ‘Gene Technologies’ module in class.

Over the two days we were able to study and even carry out some of these techniques, examples of which included:
• measuring the Nucleic Acid content in a sample of DNA using a Nano Drop (a type of micro pipette)
• preparing DNA for electrophoresis
• observing the culturing of cancerous cells 
 
Below are just some of the students’ opinions of the trip…

“Seeing the Biological equipment that is available at a higher level of education fascinated me.”
“The trip put our A2 knowledge into a real life context and has given us the foundation knowledge for our next module.”
“It enabled us all to see exactly how gene technologies can be used to find out the causes behind and treatments for both genetic and degenerative diseases.”
“We had an afternoon seminar where we met Consultants, Medical Doctors and Research Biochemists. They gave us some excellent career ideas. Everyone who spoke to us was working at a very high academic level. It was good to be involved in such ‘highbrow’ conversations!”  
“We are very grateful to David Gibbs, Honorary Registrar in Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery, PhD student, Bone and Joint research Group, for organising such a good day”

This great opportunity arose from a STEM teatime lecture in the autumn term that some of us attended at the University.

If you are interested in seeing just how ground-breaking and important this type of research is then take a look at this report that appeared on the BBC recently, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25718064

Bradley Tombleson and the A level Biology students.

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Owned by: | Last Published: 06/03/2014 13:00:08 | Next Update: N/A