Pharmacology celebrates DNA Day! Inspired by DNA Day outreach to schools across the country, scientists in the pharmacology department gave its administrative support staff a hands-on chance to learn more about the lab work researchers conduct.
Research!America, an advocacy group for science and discovery, showing that four out of five Americans think that research investment is important to job creation and that it is important for scientists to engage with the public on research and its impact on society. Yet 80 percent of Americans cannot name a living scientist.
For many years, have as a way to educate the public about research and its role in advancing human health. This involved hundreds of university students visiting schools and conducting simple scientific experiments and answering questions about medical research.
This week,聽the department of pharmacology, which is ranked second in the country in NIH funding, expanded on this effort to involve its administrative staff, which was given the opportunity to participate in their own version of DNA Day. Call it 鈥渋nreach.鈥� It was led by Matt Begley, the current lab manager for the Dohlman Lab and incoming graduate student who will be part of 黑料网鈥檚 Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP) this summer. Student services manager Nicole Arnold helped organize the day.
The morning of聽Monday May 13聽began with a lab experiment Begley led; he gave department聽support staff a taste of life in the laboratory, including聽the opportunity to test their sensitivity to a bitter chemical compound聽as a way to illustrate聽the type of human variation used to personalize health care. Begley then led the group in an hour-long laboratory exercise to聽collect and isolate their own DNA, and practice the manipulation and analysis of DNA聽with liquid-handling equipment and an agarose gel electrophoresis device used to separate and analyze gene fragments. The exercise was followed by a lunchtime discussion focused on how DNA plays an increasingly important role in health and medicine.
鈥淭he staff鈥檚 work makes my job possible, and it was nice to be able to share a unique experience with them,鈥� Begley said. 鈥淲e tried to connect the dots of translational research and give the staff a better idea of how their work supports the science happening in the pharmacology department. None of this would have been possible without the resources available from the BBSP鈥檚 Science Outreach group, Henrik鈥檚 support, or Nicole Arnold鈥檚 organization.鈥�
Participants included pharmacology business manager Patty Holloway, purchasing manager Alfred Dolge, chair鈥檚 executive assistant Arlene Sandoval, applications technician and web developer Betsy Clarke, accounting manager Tangi Covington, accounting technicians Linda Parson and Ryan Maddux, and Arnold.
Department chair Henrik Dohlman, PhD, helped answer questions about how research benefits society.
鈥淥ur support staff works with us daily, but many have spent no time in the laboratories they support,鈥� Dohlman said. 鈥淭his exercise gave them a better sense of what we do on a daily basis, and will hopefully allow them function as community ambassadors, sharing the work we do at 黑料网 to help understand the causes of disease and to find new treatments.鈥�
Arnold said, 鈥淢att made it easy for us to understand and he made it fun!鈥�
Dolge added he was thankful for the interesting and informative presentations. 鈥淔or non-scientists, having hands-on work, as well as visual aids, helped give a good tangible and noticeable result to the explanations of the process of DNA separation,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he pipetting was a good touch to help foster our interest in the results! I think we are now more informed on some of the lab work that the department does.鈥�