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Virginia Governor’s School
for Life Sciences and Medicine

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Summer Residential Governor's School for Life Sciences and Medicine

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Program details

Governor’s School students will experience three modules: clinical, molecular and environmental science. For the final week, students will work in groups on a project in one of the three areas. During the four-week program, students and staff live on-site at VCU as they explore and develop ideas and data together.

Clinical Module: In this module, students will be exposed to various aspects of the study of human systems in health and disease. During the week, students will be presented with current information, techniques and methods involving the analysis and maintenance of human systems in healthy and diseased conditions including: cell biology, immunology, tissue culturing and analysis, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and other antigen/antibody interaction tests, also physiological responses to trauma and surgery. In addition, students will have the opportunity to observe surgery at the VCU Medical Center.

Molecular Module: During this week students will learn the theory and technique of molecular biology as they investigate the microbial diversity of the James River. Students will take water samples from the James and use a variety of techniques such as PCR and bacterial transformation to make DNA clones. Students will then analyze their results by searching a sequence database in order to identify their organisms.

Environmental Science Module: In this section, students will get an overview of environmental science topics and research. Students will be in the field making observations, developing questions and collecting data. Students will learn about technology that is revolutionizing the field of environmental science and develop their abilities in the areas of experimental design and statistics. 

Extracurricular activities: During the evenings and weekends the students will be engaged in many extracurricular activities. Students will get to see a wide array of Richmond historical sites, hear from medical and dental school admissions offices, canoe, swim and watch local sporting events.

Questions?

For additional information, please contact VCU Life Sciences at (804) 827-5600.