The Science Department were terrifically excited to host Miss Rebekkah Hitti from the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket. Miss Hitti gave a brilliantly engaging and informative talk on her day to day activities as a Research Scientist in the field of canine genetics. Students from Year 9 through to Year 13 attended the talk, along with some furry four legged companions!
Mr Malin from the Science Department said, ‘It was a great opportunity to show how some of the topics our students are learning underpin cutting edge research in the scientific community, including understanding how traits can be inherited and preventing the inheritance of certain diseases. There was even a demonstration on how DNA is extracted and used for analysis, with a couple of fortunate students being given the chance to extract DNA from the dogs, Darwin and Daisy. The evening was a great success, many thanks to Miss Hitti and the AHT for spending some time with us and putting on a ‘DNAmazing’ talk. There will be similar events happening throughout the year with other special guests from the vast and varying fields of Science, watch this space!’
Clara, Year 9 said, ‘On the 23rd of January a visitor came to talk about her work in canine genetics at the Animal Health Trust. She spoke about how they use the genetics and DNA to find out what parentage a dog has or whether it is unaffected by a disease, infected or a carrier. She also demonstrated the method they use to collect a swab on an actual dog in front of us, by collecting a sample from inside the dog’s mouth.
Overall, it was very interesting and gave a full insight into the different branches of working within biology.’
Miss Hitti commented, ‘It was a pleasure to visit Northgate High school to share some of the exciting research we conduct in the Canine Genetics team at the AHT. All the Science staff and students made me feel very welcome and the fantastic turn out and interest made my talking about my roles easy, so thank you for having me. It is great to see so many young people interested in Science and I hope they now have some inspiration of avenues to pursue scientific careers in the future.’
