Students from the Healey school visited Biogen labs in Cambridge last month.

By George P. Hassett

Somerville teacher Peadar Dooley and Healey School students visited Biogen labs in Cambridge last month. As one parent said: It’s a phenomenal lab experience: the students get lab coats, safety glasses and use all sorts of cool high-priced lab equipment.  Mr. Dooley’s more scientific explanation of their trip:

“The students spent the first part of the day looking at models to determine how the sickle cell gene leads to the associated health crisis (low oxygen levels cause hemoglobin molecules to link which changes the shape of the red blood cells leading to potential blood clots and lower oxygen levels).

The main part of the day was spent doing an electrophoresis test of normal hemoglobin and a patient hemoglobin sample to determine if the patient was a carrier, had sickle cell anemia, or had normal red blood cells. The students had to make a gel with very small wells in which they placed the hemoglobin. They connected the gel box to an electric current. They then looked at how fast the hemoglobin moved in the electric field. Normal hemoglobin moves faster since it has a -2 charge (sickle cell hemoglobin has a -1 charge).”