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Alana Rosa pipettes out E. coli bacteria across a petri dish as Olivia Gaynor gets ready to spread it out with an inoculation loop. (Spenser Hasak)

Peabody students dip into the gene pool

Amanda Lurey

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PEABODY — Peabody Veterans Memorial High School students donned their safety goggles and lab coats Thursday morning before performing a gene editing exercise on E. coli as part of their elective biology class taught by Ryan Slater.

The lab was to introduce new DNA into E. coli bacteria.

“In this specific lab, we used a plasmid, which is a small ring of DNA, called pGLO. To get the bacteria to take in this new DNA, students had to carefully ‘heat shock’ the samples by moving them rapidly from ice to a warm water bath and back again,” Slater explained. “This new DNA gives the bacteria a special ability: They will glow under UV light, but only when a specific sugar called arabinose is present in their environment.”

Thursday’s step taken was “plating,” which, Slater said, refers to how the students precisely spread the bacteria “onto different petri dishes, some containing the sugar and an antibiotic, all to test if their gene editing was a success.”

“If they master this mechanism, their ultimate goal is to design their own ‘bioindicator’ bacteria,” Slater said.

He stated that since “bio” means life and “indicator” means a signal or alarm, a bioindicator is essentially something that makes a living thing an alarm for something else.

“Instead of reacting to sugar, they will try to engineer bacteria that glow in the presence of a local, community-based pollutant. The idea here is to practice a biological concept first in the lab and then apply the same practice to solve real-world environmental problems,” Slater said.

Slater’s class is influenced by a Transformative Learning Experience. TLEs are programs developed by Springpoint — a nonprofit organization that reimagines the high school experience by centering students — with the goal of keeping students engaged and interested with the curriculum by giving them the kind of learning experience that leads to rigorous thinking.

This TLE, “Honors Biotechnology Applications,” was first implemented at PVMHS, in partnership with the Barr Foundation, in the second semester of the 2024-2025 school year. PVMHS juniors and seniors are able to sign up for this class as an elective.

According to Slater, last year’s class only had eight students. Now there are 18 — many of which emphasized that this program stands out from the typical high school experience.

PVMHS senior Armando Taibot Hernandez, who plans to major in chemistry in college, said “Honors Biotechnology Applications” feels more like a college course than a high school class because the students will learn something one day and practice it immediately the next day. He said the class was “very well structured” and recommended his fellow PVMHS students to take it.

PVMHS senior Brady Tracchia said that what makes this class special is how collaborative it is.

“Especially if you want to go into something scientific or science-related, you need to have the ability to communicate and work with people. And (this class) really brings that out of people, and it teaches you how to do that because everything we do is collaborative,” Tracchia said. “We’re almost never working alone, and on top of that, Mr. Slater never really gives us the answers to anything. We have to figure it out as a class — together. So it kind of makes you really build your critical-thinking skills and your teamwork-communication skills.”

A handful of Slater’s students confidently shared that this class has positively impacted their futures, guiding them to figure out which scientific niche they would like to study and what career opportunities pique their interest.

PVMHS senior Denian Memo hopes to study biomedical engineering with a focus on UV machines, prosthetics, and new medical technology.

“This (class) kind of gives me a further grasp on how biomedical engineering would be since I’m going to be working on some new cures (and) new technologies that could be able to help certain people that have certain disabilities, in this case,” Memo said.

PVMHS senior Alana Rosa plans to major in biochemistry to later work in biotech after college.

“Personally, especially when we were learning about more of the medicinal uses for biotech, and the pharmaceutical uses for biotech, and also even engineering with food, I think it made me realize that I did want to go into the biotech field and kind of reaffirmed what I wanted to do because I saw how interesting it was,” Rosa said.

PVMHS senior Matilda Olowu noted how impactful it is to her that this project entails learning how to detect pollutants — and more so how the class’s final presentation is about using that knowledge to solve a problem in Peabody by proposing a way to find and study local pollutants.

“I feel like by doing that and kind of addressing the problem and helping us find out how we can solve it, I think that is what makes it really meaningful,” Olowu said. “I feel like that’s kind of the why behind why we’re doing all this: to kind of help our community and give back.”

The students’ final presentation is open to the public and will be on May 21 in the PVMHS auditorium from 8:15-10:45 a.m. All community members are invited to attend.

After hearing how his students praised and valued his class, Slater said, “This is exactly what makes teaching such a rewarding profession.”

“As an educator, you hope to spark curiosity, but knowing that the activities and lessons you do in class are actually inspiring them to devote their lives to these scientific professions is truly priceless,” he said. “It is a humbling reminder of the impact that hands-on, applicable science can have on students.”

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