LEAH Knox Scholars: First Year Virtual Lab Experience
In spite of very unusual and unprecedented circumstances leading up to the fourth summer of the LEAH Knox Scholars (LKS) program, LEAH staff, in conjunction with our partners at MIT’s Biology Department, made an important decision in early April:
If we can’t bring the youth to the lab, we have to find a way to bring the lab to the youth. In this spirit, we hired 24 LEAH Knox Scholars, a group of bright, motivated, and scientifically curious young people from the Boston area.
LEAH Knox Scholars carrying out biomedical research experiments in their homes using their kits developed by MIT instructors.
Each Knox Scholar received an at-home lab kit, enabling them to set up their own experiments at home. Some procedures they did included using food dyes to simulate DNA samples, practicing bacterial streaking using toothpaste, and creating their own gel electrophoresis equipment using cardboard and batteries. LKS also partnered with MIT’s Edgerton Center to provide youth with a hands-on foundation in molecular biology. Each Knox Scholar received their own molecular modeling kit, which they used to understand the processes of DNA and RNA replication as well as protein translation.
In addition to learning basic lab skills, youth also participated in virtual workshops to enhance their college and career readiness skills. Workshop topics included: discovering one’s identity, creating a resume, using LinkedIn, practicing self-care and conflict resolution, and refining their public speaking and scientific presentation skills.
The summer ended with a virtual symposium where Knox Scholars presented their excellent “virtual” posters to friends, families, and other supporters of the program. We are looking forward to the next steps for our LEAH Knox Scholars! Above you’ll find pictures from their summer experience.
LEAH Knox Scholars Second Year Virtual Internship Experience
MIT Cohort of LEAH Knox Scholars updating one another on their projects.
This summer, 19 of our second-year Knox Scholars were in a variety of virtual internships with organizations across the Greater Boston Area. Area labs who graciously agreed to host and mentor second-year Knox Scholars included Bentley University, Boston Children’s Hospital, the Broad Institute Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
The young people worked in areas such as genetics, artificial intelligence, neurobiology, and data analytics, among others, and were supervised by research mentors. Above you’ll see a subset of the LEAH Knox Scholars interning at MIT discussing their projects with one of their mentors Mandana Sassanfar.