Not only did Nelly Jimenez learn two new scientific words this week – pathology and histology – she became an amateur practitioner of both.
Nelly was among 30 students who participated in the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation’s Junior Scientist Days. Since 1979, the annual two-day event has given students from Putnam City Schools a chance to meet researchers and try hands-on experiments in OMRF’s labs.
Teachers select one student per school for Junior Scientist Days, using criteria ranging from essays to classroom performance to interest in science.
Nelly, a fifth-grader at Ralph Downs Elementary, spent two hours applying stain to liver cells and then examining them under a microscope. Her lab partner was Mike McDaniel, who manages the labs in OMRF’s Cardiovascular Biology Research Program.
“What we just did in a 31-step process was similar to what a hospital diagnostic lab would do,” McDaniel told his temporary protégé.
Afterward, Nelly explained to teachers, parents and students that pathology is the study of disease and histology is the study of tissue.
Other students, each paired with an OMRF scientist, tackled different experiments: One extracted DNA from a banana, while another learned how genetic mutations can affect a tiny species of fish. A third got a microscopic view of her own cells, removed painlessly from her cheek.
Under the tutelage of Joanna Papinka, Ph.D., fifth-grader Rylee Marks learned “that all living things have DNA, and that our DNA determines who we are and how we look.”
Parents and teachers, meanwhile, toured OMRF and heard updates from two scientists focused on cancer research, including Linda Thompson, Ph.D., who holds the Putnam City Schools Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research.
OMRF created Junior Scientist Days after the district designated OMRF as beneficiary of its Putnam City Cancer Drive. Now in its 50th year, the effort has raised nearly $4 million for cancer research at OMRF. That research has led, among other things, to an experimental brain cancer drug now undergoing clinical trials at the OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center.
“This is one of our favorite events of the year,” said Katherine Jackson, OMRF’s assistant director of donor relations. “We love helping science come alive for these young minds, and we appreciate the opportunity to show our gratitude to the Putnam City district for its continuous support of our mission.”
