For 50 New York City teens, a summer of science

by TALLEY HENNING BROWN

Generally, by the time Rockefeller University gets its hands on burgeoning scientists, they’ve already picked up the basics: cells, genes, maybe a couple of grueling months of organic chemistry. That’s not nearly early enough, say several university faculty members, as well as postdocs and students, who have been trying to make more of an impact on young, fertile minds. These scientists have, over the past several months, contributed their knowledge and enthusiasm to a variety of outreach efforts to middle and high school students and teachers.

Three such efforts, including two established programs and one that is brand new, have matched Rockefeller’s best and brightest with metro New York City students from a wide variety of backgrounds.

The SMART program — for Students Modeling a Research Topic — has been under way at Rockefeller since 2005. A national program begun at the Milwaukee School of Engineering in 2001, SMART partners high school science classes with active research labs working on understanding the structure-function relationships of various proteins. After a crash course covering one protein that their researcher-mentor investigates, students employ computer visualization and rapid prototyping construction to build a three-dimensional model of the protein and then develop an oral presentation to give to a lay audience — their school’s PTA, for example — and participate in a scientific poster session.

Rockefeller University hosted its first SMART Team in 2005, when Bonnie Kaiser, director of Rockefeller’s Science Outreach Program, matched Tommie Hata, a science teacher at The Pingry School in Martinsville, New Jersey, and an alumnus of the Outreach teacher-training program, with Seth Darst, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics. Dr. Darst guided the students in building a model of the bacterial RNA polymerase elongation complex, an essential player in the transcription of a bacterium’s DNA. The Darst lab hosted a second SMART Team led by Mr. Hata the following year as well as a team in 2007 led by Outreach alumnus Ted Scovell from Friends Seminary in Manhattan. Several other members of faculty have since joined the effort. Along with Dr. Darst, Vincent Fischetti, head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology, and Barry Coller, head of the Allen and Frances Adler Laboratory of Blood and Vascular Biology, have hosted a total of six Rockefeller SMART Teams, from The Pingry School, Friends Seminary and Ebbets Field Middle School in Brooklyn.

“It’s great to work with a SMART Team,” says Dr. Coller, who, with their teacher Sherlyne Gilles — also an Outreach alum — led the 2008 SMART Team from Ebbets Field in creating a model of the platelet integrin receptor αIIbβ3, which is central to proper blood clotting. “The students’ enthusiasm and love of learning are truly inspirational. And it was extremely valuable scientifically for us to get a three-dimensional model of the receptor we study.”

A second initiative, begun in July, paired Michael Rout’s Laboratory of Cellular and Structural Biology with a class from The New School’s Higher Educational Opportunity Program (HEOP), which provides tutoring, counseling and financial aid to high school graduates who are economically disadvantaged and would not otherwise be admitted to the university. As part of the program, students complete a six-week intensive college-preparatory course the summer before their freshman year, designed to introduce them to college-level academics.

The collaboration, between Katayoun Chamany’s HEOP biology and art class and Rockefeller University, came about when Jaclyn Novatt, a graduate fellow in the Rout lab, was hired to teach the fall semester of The New School’s Genes, Environment and Behavior course. “I also knew that Angelica Ferguson, one of my previous undergraduate advisees, had landed in the Rout lab as a research assistant. That, combined with Jackie’s enthusiasm for science and education, was a great fit for HEOP,” says Dr. Chamany.

On July 8, eight students came to the Rockefeller campus, where Ms. Novatt and Ms. Ferguson guided them in harvesting bacteria to view under a microscope, touring the Flow Cytometry Resource Center, getting a look at the steps involved in purifying bacterial protein and suiting up to view DNA on gels under an ultraviolet lamp. They also watched A Fruit Fly in New York, a short film by graduate fellow Alexis Gambis. “We really wanted to show the students that while science requires a high degree of dedication, it also requires passion and creativity, and that it isn’t mutually exclusive of other creative pursuits, like filmmaking or music,” says Ms. Novatt.

Rudy Bellani, a graduate fellow in Fernando Nottebohm’s Laboratory of Animal Behavior, led a third effort, to recruit students from high schools across the city for a two-week introductory course in neuroscience. Mr. Bellani partnered with three New York City high schools — The Bronx High School of Science, The Frederick Douglass Academy and the High School for Math, Science and Engineering — to find students with excellent academic records who either had little or no interest in science or who were leaning toward medical, rather than research, careers.

“Most science education programs out there are excellent at fostering the interests of students who are already steering toward lab science, and these are needed. However, almost no programs focus on increasing the actual number of research-interested students,” says Mr. Bellani. “I believe that if you want to excite those other students, you need to hold their attention and give them something they would tell their friends about. Every lecture in this course is thus heavily interwoven with examples of phenomena that are just jaw-dropping cool.”

Every weekday from August 18 to August 29, Mr. Bellani and fellow Rockefeller students Benjamin Campbell (Reeke lab), Graeme Couture (Robert Darnell lab) and Clare Walton (Nottebohm lab) led their students through five hours of lectures, guest presentations, tutorials on reading scientific literature and YouTube videos to cover topics including brain organization, neurotransmitters, memory, neurodegenerative and developmental disorders, sex differences and brain asymmetry, among others. At the end of each week, the students gave PowerPoint presentations on individually chosen scientific papers. The last day of class was held at the university’s Center for Field Research in Ethology and Ecology in Millbrook, New York.

“Summer Neuroscience was an amazing program,” says Maha Salama, now a senior at the High School for Math, Science and Engineering. “It was an eye-opening experience and the knowledge we gained is priceless. The course helped me realize I definitely want to pursue something in science, maybe even neuroscience.” Mr. Bellani is already planning next summer’s class.

Combined, the three educational programs have had an impact on nearly 100 students. Several of Dr. Chamany’s students have registered for additional science courses in their first year of college. Four of Mr. Bellani’s seven students have changed their goals from M.D. to M.D.-Ph.D. tracks. And the nationwide success of the SMART program led last year to a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant for the Milwaukee School of Engineering. “Science education is improving by leaps and bounds for this generation, and it’s great that Rockefeller, being a place where these kinds of endeavors are especially possible, is taking a lead,” says Mr. Bellani.