Life Support

College of Arts and Sciences Receives Gift from Life Technologies

Ann Reynolds (center with T-shirt) with CEO Greg Lucier (far left) and members of Life Technologies Board of Directors

Life Technologies, a California-based global biotechnology tools company, recently contributed $50,000 to UAB’s Center for Community Outreach Development (CORD) as well as equipment for its GENEius and LabWorks laboratories in the School of Medicine, McWane Science Center, and UAB College of Arts and Sciences. The gift is in honor of the university’s former president W. Ann Reynolds, Ph.D., who founded CORD.

Funds will be used to support CORD’s Summer Science Institute, a multi-summer program for high school students that focuses on building the next generation of scientists. The institute is a research experience for students interested in learning what it is like to do “real” science. During the first summer, students are offered short, introductory molecular biology experiments. The following summer these same students are invited back to participate in extended biochemical investigations. Finally, during the last summer, as student research interns, students are placed in a research laboratory to work on their own original project under the supervision of premier UAB faculty and staff.

“The Life Technologies gift has allowed us to expand and improve CORD’s Summer Science Institute, which offers advanced science training to 180 students each year, of which around 85 percent are from populations underrepresented in the science workforce,” says Michael Wyss, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Cell Biology. “Specifically, the funding allowed CORD to add rising seniors to our research internship program and support new and creative experiences within the Summer Institute: a new Advanced Biophysics Institute for high school students. One hundred percent of the students completing the institute go on to college, and 40 percent continue to graduate/professional school.”