Grant Awarded by Amgen Foundation to Introduce Biotech Curriculum to Area Middle and High Schools

The Amgen Biotech Experience (new window) is a program aimed to provide teachers with professional development, curriculum materials, and research-grade equipment and supplies to secondary schools. Students are taught the scientific principles behind many Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, and are guided through the steps that biomedical researchers use to produce medicines. The collaboration with Amgen helps give students real-world, hands-on lab experience to introduce them to the excitement of biotechnology and scientific discovery.

For students of the Masters of Biotechnology Program, this project adds to other ongoing outreach efforts (See elective course, BCHB-912, on Science Education and Community Outreach). “At Georgetown, we place a high value on community engagement, particularly with students who will be our future scientists,” says Jack G. Chirikjian, PhD, recipient of the two-year, $217,475 grant. “With Amgen Foundation’s support, we can transport the laboratory experience here on campus to students in the community.”

Chirikjian is a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular & cellular biology at (GUMC).