It was a day away from school, but not a day off from learning when a dozen students from across Oklahoma County visited the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
The students, part of the Youth Leadership Exchange, spent an afternoon touring OMRF’s world-class facilities and got a closer look at the science that takes a closer look at us.
Inside the Imaging Department, facility manager Ben Fowler showed Edmond North High School junior Amy Pitts and other students how microscopic images can are taken. “I learned about the scanning electron microscope in AP Biology,” she said. “It was really cool to see it up close. I’m really interested in biology, so this was a treat for me.”
Others appreciated the lab’s work of turning thousands of pictures into three dimensional objects for further study. “I loved the 3-D constructs of the inside of a cell,” Classen School of Advanced Studies junior James Foster said.
Classen junior Elvie Ellis said he was amazed at the ability to slice a mouse cell “like a thousand million times or whatever.”
“I can’t believe they can get it so small,” he said.
In OMRF’s Small-Animal Magnetic Resonance Imaging facility, research assistant Rebecca Cranford showed students magnified images of mice taken inside an MRI four times as powerful as those found in hospitals.
“In the MRI, it was cool to see how they can look inside mice and watch how cancer grows,” said Western Heights High School sophomore Chelsea Clark. “I always wanted to know how they did that.”
Cranford praised the high schoolers’ curiosity and insight, noting that they were the first tour group to successfully identify the kidneys in a cross-sectional image of a mouse generated by the MRI. “Nobody ever gets that,” she said.
The connection between illnesses in rodents and treating human disease intrigued the students. “I liked seeing the mice and learning about the issues researchers have in testing them,” said Del City High School junior Shar’dae Lewis. “Comparing that to humans and figuring out how to fix it – that was cool.”
About OMRF
OMRF (omrf.org) is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institute dedicated to understanding and developing more effective treatments for human disease. Chartered in 1946, its scientists focus on such critical research areas as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, lupus and cardiovascular disease.
