Who doesn’t love a field trip? Twenty high school students from two Long Island school districts had a unique opportunity to experience a cancer lab in action as they interacted with top cancer researchers and explored their laboratories on May 25.
Stony Brook Cancer Center researchers and staff welcomed the students from the research programs at Babylon Junior-Senior High School and Valley Stream South High School. Three full levels of the Cancer Center, located in the Medical Research and Translation (MART) building on Stony Brook’s east campus, are devoted to research, with additional research facilities on other floors.
During their visit, the two groups rotated through separate areas of the MART building. On the ninth floor, they visited some of the research lab space with Chiara Luberto, co-leader of one of the Cancer Center’s three research programs, Lipid Signaling and Metabolism in Cancer. Luberto and her colleagues showed the students the facilities for advanced cancer research, including the Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Imaging and confocal microscopy. They also toured The Lipid Cancer Lab, a modern, state-of-the-art cancer research laboratory, and viewed a presentation about the cyclotron.
“Our hope was that the students would better appreciate the importance and applicability of what they are currently learning at school by discussing their ongoing projects with scientists, and learning first-hand what types of research questions are addressed in the lab,” said Luberto. The tour was also an opportunity to motivate and inspire the students to pursue their scientific and/or medical interests, whatever they may be, beyond the classroom. “To see the diversity of our scientists and scientific paths may have helped to see themselves in a future research career.”
Stony Brook Cancer Center plans to host more of these enriching educational experiences in 2024.
Read the full story at the Cancer Center website.
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