UMBI Celebrates its 6th DNA DAY

As per tradition, every year, UMBI will celebrate DNA Day by inviting surrounding schools to participate in interactive activities related to DNA. UMBI thinks it is important for our institute to not just focus on the scientific aspect of research, but also on the societal feature as well. This event is meant to educate young students on what UMBI is doing in relation to DNA and molecular medicine and hopefully by doing so, these students will become more interested to pursue a scientific career.

On the 19th of April 2017, UMBI celebrated World DNA Day for the 6th year running and this year, we invited 145 students from 4 schools, including SMK Seri Bintang Utara, SMK Bandar Tun Razak, Sekolah Sains Selangor and Sekolah Alam Shah. This event was officiated by UKM’s Pro-Naib Canselor, Prof Dato’ Ir Marzuki bin Mustafa. Among the activities held this year were booth exhibition, interactive case study, lab visits, DNA extraction and also visiting the Malaysian Cohort. For the booth exhibition, we invited several of our colleagues from INBIOSIS, Department of Pathology PPUKM, Department of Biochemistry PPUKM and also Unit Tabung Darah HCTM. We also received participation from 2 companies, Eppendorf and Biofocus. For the interactive case study, students have to identify the culprit that infected a patient by using DNA sequence. Our most popular activity is the DNA extraction, where the students were able to see and extract DNA from strawberries.

Besides all the scientific fun, the students and staff were given free coupons for cotton candy and delicious ice cream. We hope that all of the students had a great time and were able to learn more about DNA and molecular medicine. We would also like to thank all of UMBI’s and TMC’s staff that made this event a success!

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