A group of Elizabethtown College students kicked off the summer by traveling to Binghamton University with A.C. Baugher Professor of Chemistry James A. Mackay for the fifth annual Binghamton University/Elizabethtown College Ribonucleic Acids (RNA) workshop.
The three-day workshop was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and allowed Etown students to learn about MacKay’s research on RNA and gain valuable exposure to graduate-level research.
“Science is not about head knowledge, it’s about discovery, process and experimentation,” MacKay said. “Our workshop gives students a chance to see an option of what graduate school looks like and make a more informed decision if graduate school is something they could see themselves doing. This is really gratifying because I want to train up the next generation of world-changers.”
Students worked hands-on in the Binghamton lab with state-of-art equipment and learned about the structure, function, and recognition of RNA – a key biomolecule that is relevant to the understanding of genetics and disease.
“One of the biggest advantages of any workshop like this is getting to hear and talk about science in new and exciting areas,” Tristan Mabee ’24 said. “This trip helped me cement my understanding of the context and larger value of the research I perform at Etown.”
MacKay and his students were also able to take a research sample that they prepared at Etown and do further work on it at the workshop. With this sample, they were able to prepare two new peptide nucleic acid oligonucleotides that will be used to probe binding with RNA.
“This made the work we did more relevant and exciting compared to canned experiments that we had done in the past,” MacKay said.
Students also got to spend time with graduate students.
“This trip helped me understand how graduate school works and what it looks like,” Angelina Giglio-Tos, ’25 said. “One of my favorite parts about the workshop was meeting the graduate students and going into the lab with them.”
This most recent RNA Workshop took place for the first time over the summer, which offered Etown Summer Creative Arts and Research Program (SCARP) participants an opportunity to kick off their summer research with an in-depth experience with science.
