Giving Students a New Window on Genomic Technologies

Illumina Genomic Discoveries helps high school students learn about genomic sequencing with a Lab-in-a-Box

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / April 2, 2024 / Illumina
Originally published on Illumina News Center

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) provides amazing insights into health care, agriculture, food safety, and many other disciplines, making it increasingly essential for students to have access to this technology to enhance their career options. To make that happen, the Illumina Genomic Discoveries program and Biocom California's Generation STEAM are partnering to bring NGS education to San Diego-area high schools.

"We developed a ‘Lab-in-a-Box' program to empower teachers and expose students to our technology and then partnered with Biocom California to roll it out and potentially scale it," says Vanessa Light, senior manager of Corporate Social Responsibility at Illumina. "We train teachers on an Illumina benchtop sequencer, and then they have the opportunity to bring the sequencer into their classrooms and put it in the hands of students."

Lab-in-a-Box includes an iSeq 100 System and all the materials necessary to conduct powerful experiments, like those performed in biotech labs. The program also supports teacher development by sharing information about industry tools, trends, and careers.

"It's important to give teachers access to these skills and resources," says Mikayla Ortega, Generation STEAM's program manager. "There's a multiplier effect: If we impact one teacher, we can reach 40 or even 200 students. In turn, they start seeing themselves as scientists, engineers, and strategic thinkers."

Genomic discoveries in action

Sixteen teachers in San Diego County are already incorporating Lab-in-a-Box into their curricula. One is Elizabeth Perkoski, a career technical education (CTE) biotechnology teacher at El Camino High School, a Title 1 school in Oceanside.

"The sequencer is fantastic, but the program touches on so many important skills," says Perkoski, who teaches ninth graders. "The students learn foundational bench science techniques, like pipetting and PCR, which amplifies DNA segments. They learn how sequencing works and conduct bioinformatics on the back end. It's a little bit of everything, and it gives them real-world experience."

The sequencing experiment is built around a familiar scenario: food contamination. Its premise is that a salad made conference attendees sick, and students must identify the specific vegetable and pathogen causing the outbreak. The class is given several vegetables and must analyze their surfaces to find answers. (Spoiler alert: The tomatoes are infected with E. coli.)

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