Science Program Gives Teens Hands-on Experience With Revolutionary Biotechnology
Students at Brentwood School are getting a firsthand look at the future of biotechnology through a new hands-on workshop focused on CRISPR, the groundbreaking gene-editing tool.
The program, part of the school’s Summer at Brentwood initiative, offers students an introduction to CRISPR — short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, a technology that has revolutionized biomedical research in recent years.
The session was led by Upper School science teacher Laura Feucht and Theavy So, Applied Science Research Coordinator with the Brentwood Center for Innovative Leadership (BCIL).
Feucht and So first began integrating CRISPR concepts into the curriculum during the previous academic year. This summer marks the first time Brentwood students have been able to use the tool in a lab setting. Through the program, students explored CRISPR’s role in gene therapy, disease treatment, agricultural innovation, and bioethics.