Teens hooked on research at Jackson Lab

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BAR HARBOR – Each afternoon, Emily Radford flashes her identification badge and gains entry to one of the world’s foremost centers for genetic research: The Jackson Laboratory, with its military like security protecting millions of dollars worth of scientific equipment.

Radford negotiates a maze of hallways, rushes through a door marked with her name, and settles in at her bench to begin processing DNA samples from embryonic mice.

She’s just like hundreds of eager young scientists working in the lab – comfortable with the lingo, quick with a pipette and passionate about her work.

She’s also a junior in high school.

Radford is one of eight student interns working at the laboratory.

About 80 students have completed the internship program since it began in 1993, said Sam Eliot, who heads the program. Juniors and seniors from Mount Desert Island Regional High School and Ellsworth High School are paired with working scientists in one of the research center’s laboratories for a full school year.

“We want to give the students this opportunity to engage in real research,” said Don Grieco, a science teacher at MDI High who coordinates the internship program on the school side.

“Everyone has this concept that research science is filled with eureka moments. It’s not something you can truly understand until you do it. Then you start to see the big picture of how every lab adds a little bit of knowledge to the whole of science,” Grieco said.

A research proposal, a 10-page paper and a 15-minute presentation are required of each intern, but the program is largely self-directed – students basically get out of the program what they put into it, Eliot said.

“If they get really hooked, some will put in a tremendous number of hours,” Grieco said.

Radford has spent an average of 20 hours in the lab each week, balancing her job at the Town Hill Market, peer tutoring and a grueling junior-year course schedule that includes advanced placement chemistry. She traded in her study hall, and a spot on this year’s swim team, to dedicate more time to the lab.

This summer, she plans to participate in the Jackson lab’s summer internship program, then complete a second internship next year – completing as much research as possible before graduating.

“I love my project. It’s my baby,” Radford said. “Walking away from it will be really hard. I don’t want to leave the ends hanging for someone else to take care of.”

Radford works in the Jackson’s Knowlton Laboratory, with scientist Mimi de Vries as her mentor and friend.

The lab is compiling libraries of mouse DNA from genes expressed in the early developmental stages. But before it can be studied, each gene must be isolated from other genetic material and the bacteria in which it is stored.

Radford receives each mouse gene embedded in a bacterial sample, ordered from a supplier. She must grow bacterial samples, then complete several painstaking procedures: adding precise amounts of various enzymes and other substances, filtering and spinning the solutions in a centrifuge. The procedures are done to isolate the gene.

“It was a little nerve-wracking. I had a lot of questions at the beginning,” Radford said. “But after a while, it becomes second nature.”

It takes about 12 days to bring one sample through the process from beginning to end, when the DNA is sequenced and mailed to a researcher at Temple University in Philadelphia for a collaborative study.

The DNA samples that Radford creates are added to the Knowlton Laboratory’s growing library of isolated genes. Scientists in the lab will use the samples and the basic information that accompanies them for future research projects.

Radford’s genes are from the developmental stage when an embryo comprises just two cells – a mysterious and crucial stage of development, de Vries said.

In fact, more than half of the samples Radford is studying are unknown genes. Countless genes are switched on for a short time during early embryonic development, some never to be used again by the adult animal and others that will be present at very low levels.

“These genes don’t have either a name or a function that matches anything in our database,” de Vries said. “They’re doing something important. We just don’t know what yet.”

Scientists have indicated that when some genes unique to the two-cell embryo are expressed abnormally, a miscarriage occurs. Studying the genes could lead to new, safer forms of birth control.

Researchers are also looking at the genes that control the first cell division in a fertilized egg to study how cells control such growth. Perhaps these genes could shed light on genes that play a role in cancer, de Vries said.

The possibilities are endless, she said.

Sponsors in the internship program carve out a piece of an ongoing research that they believe will benefit both the students and the lab, de Vries said.

Without Radford, these particular genes wouldn’t be studied yet, she said.

“You come into the lab in the afternoon, and we’re like a bunch of crazed rabbits. We just don’t have time to do this part of the project,” de Vries said. “This is something that needs to be done. But it’s not going to be finished in the next week, or the next year.”

The work can be frustrating because the genes Radford receives might not be what she ordered.

“Only 62 percent of what I’ve ordered is going to be correct when I get it,” Radford said. “It takes so long and you have to do so much work before you can even find out that they’re wrong. With each one, you don’t know if it’s going to work, so there’s an element of surprise in there,” she said.

“And it’s so much fun that you can’t really get frustrated,” Radford said. “I’ve always got two or three things going at once. There’s always something else you can do to keep you mind off it.”

Radford’s time at the lab has changed her perception of professional science, she said. For one thing, as she manipulates genetic material in the afternoon, her science courses the next morning have come to life.

“To them it was something dry. To her, it was something real,” de Vries said.

Grieco said the students are seeing more connections.

“The kids are more aware of what science is,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing what these kids are doing. When they talk, they actually sound like scientists.”

In the past nine months, Radford has, in fact, fallen in love with pure science.

“There’s this aura about the whole place,” Radford said. “It’s just centered on learning. Everyone here is so focused. There’s no goofing off. It’s not like your normal work environment where you’re off and you go home and that’s it. These people go home and keep thinking about this stuff.” she said.

“I was always going to be a doctor. Now, I’m hooked on research. I love our lab,” Radford said.

She is already researching schools where she can earn a medical degree and a doctorate simultaneously.

“In 2009, she will be an M.D.-Ph.D.,” Eliot said.

Radford and her fellow interns will present their work at a symposium at the lab at 2:30 p.m. Monday, May 21.