Find out more about DNA for Healthcare Science Week

Today (March 5) marks the start of Healthcare Science Week – an annual programme designed to promote the work of healthcare scientists and encourage young people to consider it as a career.

As part of the virtual events taking place during the week, people interested in finding out more about DNA and genomics – the study of someone’s genes – can take part in a short online course on the Health Education England website. The course looks at what DNA is and the principles and practices of biological data, known as bioinformatics.

There will also be a Covid-safe virtual pub quiz on March 10 organised by the team at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London to give healthcare scientists a chance to relax and put their knowledge to the test.

And children will be able to learn more about science and the laboratory with an online story called Sock the Puppet.

Families and teachers can book free tickets to the Zoom event at 11am on Friday, March 12. It follows the story of Sock the Puppet who visits children in hospital to cheer them up, but ends up catching all the bugs that have made them ill.

This sparks off an adventure to the laboratory – the cleanest place in the whole hospital. The puppet show will also be available as a podcast after the live online event.

Older children can download a free copy of Superlab magazine – a comic aimed at seven to 11-year-olds to teach them more about biomedical science.

And there are a range of activity sheets for children on the Institute of Biomedical Science website.

These activities include learning about cheek swabbing – a technique which is used by AlphaBiolabs to collect samples of cells for DNA testing. Other worksheets include looking at urine testing, known as urinalysis, extracting DNA from a strawberry, and learning more about genetics and DNA using coloured beads to represent different characteristics like hair colour and eye colour.

AlphaBiolabs carries out DNA, drug, alcohol and Covid-19 testing at our UKAS-accredited laboratory.

To find out more about any of our services, call 0333 600 1300 or email our Customer Services team at info@alphabiolabs.com.

 

Image Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowamateur/14017034055/