Senior Jenna Tocco from Danvers and junior Virginia(Ginny) Vienneau from Groveland, two students in the biotechnology program, will be participating in an internship at Harvard University at the Harvard Science Center.  Jenna and Ginny will be assisting Alia Qaternah who is the site director of the Amgen Biotech teacher program and the teacher education outreach coordinator in her laboratory responsibilities. These responsibilities will include providing teachers across the state with the supplies and equipment necessary to perform the Amgen Biotech Experience labs.  These labs are centered around bringing opportunities for students to perform bacterial transformations, purification of green fluorescent protein and understanding genetically modified organisms (GMO’s).

Jenna and Ginny will be spending time preparing media, plates, cell cultures, transformations, and packaging lab kits to be sent out to other teachers, including preparation of our materials for our ABE labs here at Essex Tech.  They will also be working on an independent project centered around improving the results of the GMO lab currently used in this program.  Both Jenna and Ginny are also expected to attend several lectures at the Science Center to be determined by student interest.