Making it personal at the UB and Roswell Park-hosted Genome Day

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Four hundred 8th-graders will take a first step toward understanding personalized medicine when they attend the third annual Genome Day on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus on March 9.

The University at Buffalo and Roswell Park Cancer Institute have teamed up to engage these budding scientists and researchers as part of a series of STEM events designed to raise awareness and pique student interest in pursuing careers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

Buses arrive at 9:30 a.m. at Roswell Park, located at the corner of Elm and Carlton streets. A pep rally kicks off the event at 9:45 a.m. in the Hohn Auditorium with brief remarks to follow by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, Buffalo Public Schools (BPS) Superintendent Kriner Cash and leaders from Roswell and UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences (CBLS).

Additionally, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority and Lamar Transit will recognize Desanay Nalls, a 10th grader at the Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts, who is this year’s winning designer of the STEM poster hanging in 10 NFTA bus shelters.  

Following these remarks, graduate students and postdoctoral associates will lead small groups of students in DNA extraction and other hands-on learning activities. These include karyotyping for chromosomal differences, origami to model DNA structures and identifying genetic mutations by interpreting sequences from healthy cells and tumor cells.

Genome Day is a partnership of UB’s CBLS; UB’s Genome, the Environment and the Microbiome (GEM) Community of Excellence; the State University of New York; and Roswell Park; with the City of Buffalo and Buffalo Public Schools.

News media are welcome to attend Genome Day and the following additional events.

• STEM Read Aloud: March 10 at Marva J. Daniel Futures Preparatory School (295 Carlton Ave., Buffalo). Coordinated by the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, guest VIP readers will join mascots Sabretooth and Reada Book in visiting K–3 classrooms. For more information, contact Dawn Peters at petersd@buffalolib.org or 858-7195.
• Buffalo Museum of Science STEM Exploration: March 21 (9:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m.) Three hundred Buffalo Pubic Schools students, from kindergarten to second grade, will visit the science museum for an interactive morning of learning. They will discover how exciting science and discovery can be. For more information, contact Karen Wallace at kwallace@sciencebuff.org or 896-5200, ext. 392.
• Science Exploration Day: March 22 at UB’s North Campus. Nearly 1,100 10th and 11th graders from Western New York have registered for the 2017 Science Exploration Day. They will participate in STEM workshops led by professionals, researchers and scientists, including UB faculty members and students. More info here: http://www.buffalo.edu/ubnow/stories/2017/02/science-exploration-day.html. For more information, contact Suzanne Chamberlain at chamberl@buffalo.edu or 881-1706.