One more year, IDIBAPS organizes the activity "Generació Ciència", to show high school and secondary school students some examples of the research carried out at the Institute. This year, the scientific workshops focus again on COVID-19 and the virus that causes it, SARS-CoV-2.
The activities will take place in the gardens Beatriu de Pinós (C/ Rosselló 149-153 Barcelona), the inner courtyard behind the Center Esther Koplowitz, headquarters of IDIBAPS. The nearly 250 participating students, from 10 Catalan schools, will also visit the center's biobank, the scientific platform that houses and processes biological samples for research.
Generació Ciència is supported by the Barcelona City Council and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT). This is the fourth edition of the activity. The previous three were held in 2018, 2019 and 2021.
Workshops
Escape room: Emergency in the COVIDBANK: In November last year, a crime was committed in South Africa and the culprit could have been admitted to the Hospital Clínic, infected with the Omicron variant, which at that time had not yet reached Catalonia. The students will become scientists who will compete to process a blood sample and find the suspect patient. To do so, they will have to overcome obstacles by solving virus-related tests. The workshop aims to teach how the COVIDBANK, the COVID-19 patient sample bank, works and which SARS-CoV-2 studies it participates in.
How PCR works: Students will simulate the different stages of DNA amplification and perform an electrophoresis to visualize which of the samples processed in the previous workshop corresponds to the culprit of the crime. In addition, they will extract DNA from a biological sample to get a closer look at this molecule that is indispensable for life. The objective of the workshop is to familiarize students with the basics of PCR, a very common and indispensable technique in biomedical research, which has been key to the control and management of the pandemic.
