Photo by Ray Marklin
John Ordono (left), a seventh grader at McKinley Classical Junior Academy middle school in St. Louis, conducts an experiment in a lab with Hongwei Du, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, as part of the 2009 Junior Scientist Institute sponsored by the Association of Black Biomedical Graduate Students. The experiment was an exercise to synthesize nanomaterials through chemistry methods and used transmission electron microscopy pictures to show what nanomaterials look like. Twenty students from McKinley and Marian Middle School came to the School of Medicine Feb. 17 for a full scientific research immersion and worked one-on-one with doctoral and M.D./Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers in an effort to ignite the spark of science appreciation and create a pipeline for future scientific researchers.