Research Issue - Harvard School of Dental Medicine

harvarddentalbulletinWinter 2010–11Volume 70Number 3Community Health FocusMiddle-Schoolers Visit HSDM LabsStudents learned about the research that takes place at HSDM.In october, selected Boston and Cambridge public middleschoolstudents visited the HSDM research laboratories ofBeate Lanske, Yefu Li, Bjorn R. Olsen, and Vicki Rosen as partof the Explorations program, which is coordinated through theHarvard Medical School Office for Diversity and CommunityPartnership. The program’s primary objective is to providestudents with experience outside the classroom to enhancetheir curricula in science and mathematics.During the day of Explorations activities, Harvard facultyand research associates hosted some 250 sixth-, seventh-, andeighth-grade students for presentations, panel discussionsabout educational paths in science, and thepairing of individual students with researchersfor laboratory activities. The highlight ofExplorations is the students’ shadowing oflaboratory scientists at HSDM, HMS, andthe Massachusetts College of Pharmacy andHealth Sciences. HLeft: Beate Lanske, center, head of the LanskeLaboratory, explains her lab’s focus to agroup of middle-school students.Below left: Yuan Quan, a researcher in theLanske Lab, shows the middle-schoolers howresearchers isolate genomic DNA from tissues, which can be furtherused to analyze mutations in a gene.Below: Kurt Belisle, a Lanske Lab researcher, demonstratesdissection of mouse organs for use in histological analyses.18