Alabama's STEM explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation, established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holle.

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All coming up right now on Alabama STERM Explorers Hi, and welcome back to Alabama's new Explorers.

We're here at Southern Research in Birmingham, Alabama.

I'm Anderson, and these are my friends, Crystal and Samantha from Thermo Fisher Scientific.

I actually haven't been feeling too well lately, and they know a lot about COVID tests.

And I just got one, but I tested negative.

Okay, good.

Well, that's a relief that worried me.

Yeah, well, I got to the doctor's office, so.

Do you know anything about that?

Well, actually, Anderson, there are actually two types of COVID tests that you can get.

One, that you take it home or one that you may take at urgent care or at the doctor.

And it's a PCR test.

Okay.

What's a PCR test?

So actually, our company makes PCR tests for COVID testing.

Right, Samantha?

Right.

So the tests that we make actually test for the presence of RNA from the COVID 19 virus.

So if you have the COVID 19 virus, that virus is making RNA in your body and that's nasal swab that you get will have it.

And when we test it and we put it in these plates and then we can put the plates in the analyzer and it can tell us if you're positive or negative, depending on if the RNA is crazy present.

Have you do you know what RNA is?

I think so.

I definitely have learned about RNA before.

Yeah.

So we're going to get to that.

RNA is actually something that is present in my body.

Your body and also one of the building blocks of RNA is actuallA.

But I want to jump back for just a second.

We talked about Thermo Fisher Scientific, right?

Right.

And have you ever heard of it before?

I don't think so.

So we're a life science company and our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer.

Isn't that cool?

That's really cool.

Yeah.

Have you done anything other than COVID before?

Honestly, we do a lot of different things, but our COVID testing kits are actually what's most recently known in the news.

And so I want to really dive in deep to kind of give you a better idea of how the covert testing kits work.

And the best way to do that is to really take it back and talk about what DNA is.

I know you'd heard of RNA before.

Do you know what DNA is?

I think so.

DNA is kind of the building blocks of life, right?

Wow.

Absolutely.

You know what DNA is short for?

It's an acronym.

Do you know what it represents?

Oh, it's DEOXY.

Ribose.

Nucleic acid?

Yes.

Awesome.

Yes.

Not a lot of people know around.

Yes.

That is what DNA stands for.

And so today we're going to do a fun activity over actually going to build DNA.

Have you ever done that before?

I don't think I've ever built DNA before.

No.

Okay.

Well, this is going to be a treat and it's going to be a double treat because not only are we going to build it, we're going to build it using candy.

Yes.

That's how I know how to do it.

I like candy.

Yes.

Do you like Twizzlers?

I like to leave me bears.

I love gummy bears.

Love.

I thought you did.

So I brought treats for all of us to make or each going to make our own personal double helix.

Okay.

All right.

And so we open up our bags here.

There are a couple of things that we're going to need.

Wegoing to need to Twizzlers.

The important thing to remember about and Helix, which I have right here, is that there's actually two strands.

So the DNA Helix is why it's called a double helix, because it has to strands and there's actually bases here, what we call chemical bases.

Have you ever heard of what a nucleotide is?

I don't remember.

I don't remember.

Samantha, do you know?

Oh, you know, I know.

I thought you did.

So, Anderson, actually, the four different nucleotides that we have in DNA are adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine.

Okay.

And they're really cool because they they're very particular.

They only want to pair with one another.

So all the other names only want to pair with thymine.

All the guanine is only one to pair with cytosine.

So the DNA segment that we're going to make, we're actually going to make the nucleotide and build the latter.

Yes.

And it's important to remember, because there are some colors that we're going to associate with just for today to tell us what chemical based is that we're actually working with.

So today we're going to pull out our gummy bears children.

We cleaned the table, everyone.

So we're okay here because we're going to be able to eat these afterwards.

I trust.

Trust me, this can take all the willpower not to eat them now.

Yes.

Yes.

This won't take too long.

So you'll be eating in just enough time.

And we've got extra?

Yes.

So the important thing to remember here, that when we're working with Adenine, we're actually going to be using yellow as the color.

So I may need you to help me remember that yellow is for adenine.

And the easy way to remove or adenine is just call it a going to be working with a.

Okay.

And then we're going to be pairing that, just like Samantha said, with thymine, which actually oing to stand for T and we're going to use the red gummy bear.

Okay.

So we're going to pair these two things together, A and T and.

Yes, just like that.

So let's first start with building the first piece of our ladder.

A lot of people call that the DNA double helix a ladder.

And you'll see why here in just a second.

So we're going to put the object of this is to put both strands of our DNA helix together, and we're going to use a toothpick to do that.

So you want to put in the toothpick?

Be careful.

They're very sharp.

Yes, they are sharp.

So be very careful.

All right.

So before you put the other end on, we have to add in our bases.

So remember, we just said that the yellow was for alanine?

Yes.

Oh.

Yes.

Very close.

Very close.

You get an A for effort and then we're going to do I think I put my name thiamin, which is the red because remember A and T go together.

Right.

So a lot harder than I thought it was.

It is.

They are a little hard to put on there, so you got to really push it in there.

Good.

Pull it down.

And then, you know, it's it just makes you work a little bit harder to get ready to eat this afterwards.

I'm sure our body works really hard to make DNA.

Oh, yes, it does.

All right.

So we've got our first one here.

Okay.

And this.

So then after that, we're going to do our second ladder, so we don't need our piece of it.

You don't need the second piece yet.

We're going to build kind of the steps of the ladder before we add on that second piece.

So you get your second toothpick and we're going to use the same colors because we're going to repeat this actually three times.

Okay.

So you're going to do what what goes with a T?

T exactly.

So we're going to do yellow and red again.

So, Anderson, quick trivia for you.

Do you know where DNA is found in the cell, the nucleus?

Absolutely.

So, right.

Can you take out the features right here?

Well, I won't show you.

I almost did.

But can you show us where the nucleus is?

Nucleus is right here exactly right in the middle.

And that's where DNA lives.

That's its house.

So we got one more.

How are you doing there?

Oh, good.

We're almost there.

So we got a next ladder, and then we'll while we're moving on to the next set of bases, do you remember what Samantha said?

Were the other two letters that are the four chemical bases?

It was G and C, G C. Well, you have a great memory.

Yes, I needed you when I was taking these science exams.

Right.

Because I still to this day have to look back and remember what are the bases that pair with each other?

So we've got all three of the ladder.

So now for this part, we're going to be using the white for our cytosine, which is the C, and then we'll be using green for our guanine, which is the G. All right.

So then again, we're going to repeat this three more times and then we'll be almost done.

What's your favorite gummy bear color?

Um, I like the clear one.

The clear ones.

That's pretty cool.

So what would you be eating then, if you.

If you ate the white gummy bear?

Maybe pineapple.

Maybe pineapple.

Oh, that sounds delicious.

That sounds da licious.

So you'd also be, according to this DNA ladder, eating Doesn't sound very good.

I think pineapple sounds about right.

So I'm with you on that.

I am with you on that.

So we've got one more piece of the letter that we're going to use and then we'll almost be done with our helix.

So it is kind of hard to get these on, but it's a fun little activity and.

Hey, and a cool snack later on.

Yeah, you're building DNA, right?

That takes a lot, a lot longer in our bodies.

So I think we're doing a pretty good job.

Do you know what DNA does in the body and is it DNA codes for some of our traits, right?

Absolutely.

It's like the blueprint for all of our features.

Yes.

So it's what makes my hair the color that it is.

My eyes and your eyes.

The color that it is.

It's it's really and every living thing so important part of the body and.

Wow.

Okay it looks like your dad's we have one strand down.

And so now the easiest part of this is this we're going to add the second piece of our helix to our band where the magic happens.

So you just got to stick it in there.

Remember to be careful.

Yes.

Let might need to scoot my back a little bit because I didn't leave much room.

Oh, yeah.

So you want to make sure that in your ladder that it's, you know, kind of evenly spread out so it has room to move.

So definitely don't want to try this without your parents.

Right.

Because the toothpicks can be a little sticky here.

And the good thing is our bodies know exactly how to make DNA so they don't have to worry about making them too long or too short.

Yeah, they know exactly where to go.

All right.

All right.

So you got it.

So you see how it looks like a ladder.

Yeah, it does.

It looks pretty cool.

Yeah.

And so what you really are going to do next, I think you know the answer to this.

What do you think we're going to do next?

We've got our ladder.

How do we make this look like a DNA helix?

Double helix, cheat code.

Look at the model.

Yeah, we have to twist it.

We have twists.

Exactly.

So all you do is twist it, and then you've got your DNA.

Double helix, right?

Awesome.

Pretty cool.

And we made it.

We made DNA and probably, what, 5 minutes?

I'd say that's pretty extraordinary work.

What do you think?

I think so.

I think we made an extraordinary science experiment and a cool treat to eat.

Actually, a cool treat to eat.

So this is DNA.

And, you know, we did talk about RNA and how within our COVID testing kits that, you know, they actually look for RNA in your COVID samples that you get after your nose is swabbed.

Right.

So for these purposes, because I just knew you were coming and you were going to talk about this, I also made a RNA strand as well.

And so as you can see here, some of the what's going on with this strand.

So as you can see, RNA looks a little bit different from DNA, right?

As you can tell, there is a single backbone and you see all of the nucleotides.

So the difference, if you look at the DNA helix, you'll see that there's pairs.

And you'll also notice that on this one, there's missing instead of thymine.

We actually have a uracil.

So that what color was I?

Thymine.

Gummy bear thymine was remember A&T then?

Okay.

Yeah.

So on this one, the red actually doesn't represent thymine.

It represents uracil because in RNA, instead of a thymine, we have a uracil, a single backbone, and all of the nucleotides are on one strand.

They don't pair.

And you'll find RNA in RNA viruses like the common cold, some of the common cold, the flu.

And you know what?

You get tested for COVID 19.

It's an RNA virus.

And so with that, with our COVID testing kits, we actually look for that RNA segment in the sample that we swab your nose where we take it, we mix it up with some cool reagents, we put it in a plate and we use an analyzer that does PCR that can tell us yes or no if the RNA is present.

And that's when your doctor calls you in and say, either, you know, you're exposed to COVID and you may have some of that RNA, it kind of looks like a cooler.

It does, but this is actually a really cool instrument that it takes the plates and the samples and it heats and cools them to actually make more of the RNA if it's present so that it can be detected.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's pretty cool, right?

Yeah.

So yeah, I know it does.

It it doesn't help with figuring out what's going on with you today, but it's really cool to understand the things that we do in the lab because Krystal and I do that every day in our lives.

We help our customers to test for COVID 19.

Yeah, so and that's the thing.

I really wish that we could figure out exactly what was wrong with you, but that's not our job.

However, you know, you said you were sneezing and coughing a little bit.

Have you been outside a lot lately?

Yeah, I have.

You have been around flowers or trees or anything?

I have.

You have a lot.

I don't know.

I mean, I have been known to hear that, you know, sometimes pollen this time of year can be really high.

So maybe that's why you're sneezing.

Yeah, maybe you got exposed to an allergen.

Yeah.

Oh, so you know what?

Let's find out.

This is all really cool stuff.

It really is.

And next, we're going to talk about how allergens and exposure in your body can help with some of ttudies around hematology.

Okay.

Well, all right.

Will be that I'll be interested to explore right after a quick snack and you will ever since I can remember, I loved building things.

I can remember being being really young and building things with sticks or rocks or whatever I could find that I could build with.

And then I later discovered Legos and discovered that you can take these little bullet bricks and build whatever you want it.

And as I went to school and grew up and learned that there's actually something you can do that's related to that, and I discovered that through chemistry, you can build molecules and not only build molecules, but build molecules that could help help people.

And if you're a doctor or a lawyer or or something else, you help one person at a time.

But by b a medicinal chemist and by working here at Southern Research, trying to solve the world's hardest problems, we can change the world by the molecules we make.

And every day I get up and that's what I think about, I think is today, the day that I'm going to make a molecule that'll change the world.

Chemistry is one of those areas where there's lots of different things that you can do, but medicinal chemistry is just what suits me because I'm still able to create and I'm still able to build things that can help people.

I've worked on several projects here at Southern Research, but the one that we're working on now that's really exciting is for cystic fibrosis.

It's been a real challenge with this project because it's something that's not been done before, so these types of compounds have not been made yet.

That can help.

There are drugs on the market, but those specific ones we're going after are really new and hopefully we can discover something that can make their lives better.

You know, the next five years.

I just want to continue to to grow, continue to become a better medal Chemist to continue to be a better manager.

I have several people under me now.

I just want to learn every day.

I would say, follow your dreams.

You know, if you grew up with a curiosity for science, don't let anybody change your mind.

Don't think about money.

Don't think about this or prestige Do what you love.

Go after what you love.

Because in the end you won't be sorry because you're doing something that you love and something that is part of you.

And a job is a lot more than a job.

It's a big part of your life.

And if science is that, then go for it.

Hi, and welcome back to our In the STEM Explorers.

I'm Anderson and this is my friends Crystal and Samantha from Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Thermo Fisher Scientific.

And we're back today to talk about Anderson here, who hasn't been feeling very well.

And so we know he doesn't have COVID, thankfully.

So now we're going to try and figure out if it's his allergies.

And one of the really cool things that we discovered was that within our bodies, any time we're exposed to an allergen, do you know what an allergen is?

No.

What's an allergen?

So an allergen is something that we come into contact with and our body views it as something foreign.

So because it's foreign, our body wants to fight it and get rid of it.

So you'll start sneezing, your eyes start watering.

That's your body trying to get rid of that particular allergen that's bothering you.

And sometimes our bodies can kind of overreact and it'll signal some of the cells within our blood to make more of the particular blood cells that fight infections, that fight allergens.

And we have a really cool actual image to show you on a microscope.

And Anderson, have you ever seen a microscope before?

Yeah, I've seen it in school before.

Yeah.

Okay.

I love to use the analogy of a microscope when I think about a magnifying glass, like when you put a magnifying glass up to a piece of paper and you want to you know, you can see the letters a lot bigger than what they were just to the naked eye.

It really helps to magnify things better.

And that's a good way to think about a microscope, right, Samantha?

Right, right.

Yeah.

It actually takes a lens and it refracts light to actually make things appear bigger than what they are when we see with our naked eyes.

And this microscope actually has a 20 x lens.

So the images that we're looking at, which is actually a blood side, so we take a smear fluid and we stain it with a particular stain so that we can see all of the different cells within our blood.

And this microscope, which can see 20 times what our eyes can see, gives us an image of all the different blood cells.

And Anderson, I don't know if you've ever seen a blood smear before, but did you know that our blood is made up of different types of cells?

I think I heard that before.

Isn't it white blood cells and red blood cells?

Absolutely.

Great job.

And so but did you know that within our white blood cells, there's different types?

I don't think I knew that part.

Yeah.

We actually have several different types of white blood cells that are kind of like the warriors in our bodies.

And if you take a look here, you can see some of the different types of cells we have.

We have lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, basal fields, neutrophils, cells, and make sure I get them all erythrocytes, which are red blood cells and platelets.

And each one of these has a different job.

I've heard of platelets before, I think.

Okay, what do you know about platelets?

Our platelets.

What clots the blood to make a scab?

Yeah, absolutely.

So platelets work together within our blood to whenever we get a cut or we get an open wound to help close that wound and stop it from bleeding so we don't bleed to death.

And if we look at this really cool blood slide, we'll see it's in black and white, but we can see all of the different cell types and you can see the circular ones that look kind of hollow in the middle.

Those are actually erythrocytes or red blood cells.

Do Krystal, do you know what red blood cells do?

I don't.

Do you?

Oh, all red blood cells.

I'm not actually so sure.

So red blood cells carry oxygen throughout your body.

Oh, okay.

I think I'm remembering that now.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a very important job and that's all we have.

So many of them, you'll see that there's so many more of the donut, donut shaped cells and all of the other cells.

But we do have a lot of the different white blood cells here and you can see all of the different types and they all are very similar on this particular slide.

But if you look at the image we have here, it kind of shows us all the different ones.

Each of them have a different role.

So lymphocytes and monocyte to help with viruses within our body.

So say you did had the flu or COVID, you probably see a lot more lymphocytes in let's see in monocytes.

We also have eosinophils and basil fields, which I kind of have a sneaking suspicion you probably have more of if this is your allergies bothering you.

Okay.

Yeah, because eosinophils and basil fields play an important part in inflammation in our body and fighting allergens.

So if you look on here, you'll see some eosinophils, some basil fields, some neutrophils.

And those are the cells that are probably making more, producing more and causing your body to really have to fight and sneeze and cough to try and get rid of those allergens.

I like basil, but I'm not sure I like basil filled.

I'm with you on the basil.

Right.

Delicious.

Well, luckily, these basil don't taste anything like basil and they don't work like basil, thank God.

And so we'll go on to talk a little bit about what we co to help you feel better.

Okay.

That's actually important part, right?

When you, you know, your sneezing, your coughing, actually, antihistamines can really help with sending that response to your body and helping your immune system to fight off whatever infection that you may have if you're sneezing or your allergies.

So it's amazing the things that our body does and how our body really responds to any foreign objects or things that may be entering.

And that's exactly what's happening with your allergies.

So maybe getting a anithistamine might be something that you could look into.

Yeah.

Ask your parents for of any kind of antihistamines.

It'll tell your body to relax.

It's just pollen.

We don't need to go into fight mode over pollen.

Okay?

Yes.

The body will handle it all for you with a little bit of help.

So we hope you feel better, right?

If it's not covered, hopefully it's allergies.

And if not, we'll just have to keep go back to the doctor to see what will help you out.

Yeah, the doctor's office is pretty fun.

I get candy and you know how much you like candy and you like it here.

So I think this is probably a really successful visit.

What do you think?

I definitely think so.

Yeah.

You're looking better already.

Yeah.

No coughing here.

This is a ton of fun, and I learned a lot.

I learned a lot from you, too.

Yeah.

It was really fun to learn more about hematology and the study of blood and how COVID tests work.

Well, this concludes this episode of Alabam STEM Explorers, but we'll see you next week bye!

Thanks for watching.

Alabama STEM Explorers If you missed anything or you want to watch something again, you can check out our website at Alabama.

STEM Explorers.

dot org.

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Feel free to send us a video question or an email on our Web site, Alabama STEM Explorers Dot org.

Thanks again for watching.

We'll be back next week.

Alabama's STEM explores is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation, established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holle.

Champions of servant leadership.