Nine students from San Diego's Preuss School will get a taste of medical research this week. They are taking part in a week-long internship at the Sanford-Burnham Institute.
San Diego is a center of biomedical research and this week some local teenagers will take what could be a first step toward PhDs. Students from the Preuss School will don lab coats and study the process of aging and programmed cell death.
Preuss school serves low-income families who want their kids to excel academically. Malene Hanson is a biologist at Sanford-Burnham. She said this week's internship has a clear purpose.
"And that is to give the kids an opportunity to see real science happen, right? You have a question, you ask it, you experimentally address it and then you have to document it," she said.
Students who complete the program this week can apply for the CURE program. It provides financial and scholarly support to students who want to get a doctoral degrees in life sciences.
