This REU site program entitled "Biology on a Chip Internship Program (BioChiP)" will be hosted by the Department of Bioengineering and the Biomolecular Nanotechnology Center (BNC) at the University of California at Berkeley. The BioChIP mission is to lay the scientific and engineering foundations for the design, simulation, fabrication and characterization of novel quantitative biological diagnostic devices for use in clinical and research settings. The students' research experience will be enhanced by a variety of educational activities. They will attend a weekly workshop that will be focused on how to design experiments, how to structure logical oral presentations and written reports as well as how to successfully prepare for graduate school admissions. Journal articles relevant to the field of biological diagnostics will also be presented at this weekly meeting. Each participant will be required to read and present one journal article over the course of the 10-week program. The REU site program will culminate with a final Poster Symposium at which each participant will present a poster that summarizes his or her summer research project.
An interesting feature of this REU program is the Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) component. During this program 2 San Francisco Bay Area high school teachers will spend 1-week in the BioChip laboratory at the BNC learning a high-school appropriate microfluidics lab exercise. At the end of the program each high school teacher will receive a stipend and support for supplies to run the microfluidics lab exercise with their students at the high schools.
The Principal Investigator (PI) will focus recruitment efforts towards students from members of underrepresented minorities and students from schools where research opportunities are limited. The goal is to have 75% of the participants come from underrepresented groups and 50% of the participants be women. Also, by including the RET component to teach high school teachers a microfluidics lab exercise, the PI hopes to reach a diverse pool of high school students who otherwise might not have considered careers in science or engineering.
The BioChIP program provides tremendous professional development opportunity for the students involved. Here are some of the things those students this year said: "The BioChIP program was the most empowering and fulfilling experience in my educational career." "I learned more about myself and my field than during my entire time in college." "BioChIP was by far the best academic experience I have ever had, and I am so thankful that I was given this opportunity." The program provides significant hands-on research experience where students are in charge of their experiments, it connects them with mentors at UC Berkeley, it acquaints them with a variety of new research techniques, and it provides them with insight into applying to graduate school. Three of the students who graduated this year were accepted to very good graduate programs, and one received an NSF graduate research fellowship. Moreover, to ensure the effectiveness of BioCiIP activity in our community, the BioChIP team visited Berkeley High School and overall student participation and excitement was remarkable. Our demonstration complements the students’ training because it presents novel technologies and open-ended questions to problems that many of them can appreciate from their internships. Our goal with these demonstrations was to show students the power of innovative creative thinking combined with practical experience.
