north shore news Wednesday, April 21, 1999 — North Shore News - 15 @ BUSINESS HIGH TECH =, NEWS photo Mike Wahetieid SENTINEL Secondary School biotech student Janis Hui, who shared a project on DNA with Sherry Leung, was on hand at Biotech Exhibition 99. Students compete in biotechn Sarah Woodend Contributing Writer A group of secondary school students from the North Shore are preparing to explain the field of biotechaology to their peers. On Monday B.C. Biotechnology Alliance will host the Connaught Studer Biotechnology Exhibition at Robson . Square Contereace Centre. This year is the first time Vancouver has held this annual nation-wide competition which showcases scientific experiments in the field of biotechnology. Four of the eight projects featured are by students attending secondary schools on the North Shore. Students trom Sentinel Secondary School will present You Are Shedding DNA and Observing the Electrochemical Abilities of Shewanella Putrefaciens. Handsworth students will look at The Effect of Three Fertilisers en Rainbow Trout. West Vancouver students will examine a Liminescent Plant. The fair was open to all high school students in Vancouver and the deadline for project submissions was November. Students were given $260 to prepare their projects and assigned ‘mentors from the biotech community who worked with them in their labs. Janis Hui isa Grade 11 student at Sentinel Secondary School in West Vancouver. She and her partner, Grade 12° student British Columbia is Canada’s fastest growing biotech region Sherry Leung, are presenting a project called You Are Shedding DNA. They worked with Andy Beckenbach, director at the Institute of Molecular Biology at Simon Fraser University, to learn about DNA fingerprinung. When they started work in January they had never worked in a professional lab. “They were really starting from scratch — they learned quite a bit,” Beckenbach said. : The experiment involved fingerprinting samples of DNA from hair, blood and dead skin cells, and making billions of - copies and determining, which was easiest to read. Beckenbach said this is a new way of discovering who is relat- ed and is useful for fields such as forensics, Hui said it was a big commitment, but her teacher encour- aged her to go for it. “It cook a lot of time, so at first we hesitated but it was well worth it.” They were interested in media coverage like the OJ. Simpson case and came up with the idea after learning about advancement in the field, The girls spent more than 50 hours in the lab with Beckenbach and about 100 hours on the project all together. They will have 15 minutes to present their project to the judges. Hui said she is nervous about the presentation because © she is planning something unique. . As well as the student projects there will be 40 exhibits show- casing careers of the new millennium. ¢ Carcers of the Future Info Fair will highlight robotics, computer gaming, acrospace, biotechnology, software enginecr- ing, environment, Internet/Web design and multimedia. Thoren Young, assistant coordinator for the Connaught exhibition, is hoping the fair will become an annual event in Vancouver. She says the field of biotechnology has a very promising job market in B.C. right now, which is good for students entering, post-secondary school to know. “Typically students don’t know what fields there will be suc- cess in; this event will show them the opportunities.” Biotechnology is a $4 billion growth industry in B.C: which is Canada’s fastest growing biotech region. in 1993 tiere were 41 biotechnology companies in B.C. compared to 80 today. The sciences provide jobs for over 70% of new hires. The event is bringing together more than 1,800 students and educators from Greater Vancouver and is open to the gen- - eral public. Students will be awarded cash prizes and scholar- ships from sponsoring organizations. The top prize is $5,000, half of which will go to students and half to industry. which includes: PENTIUM 166 RAM 16MB HOD 850 MB/3.2GB 56K MODEM 15” TOWER CASE 16 BIT SOUND CARD 4DX CD-ROM 3COM 509 NETWORK CARD Kec Versa P100 Texas Instruments P75 haputse replyC 435/63 impulse (Power Lite) 48652X2-66 . Impulse 690 C ASG0X-50 GUARANTEED LOWEST PRICESIN led quantities Pentium msther boards (up to 200#4H) $59 (re-furhisted) $829 PC! Sound Card $28 (new) 486 Mother boards $?-$10 Monitors ; from $49 Memory Best Prices Guwantecs 56K Modem ‘ $48 (new) Hew & used hard disk drives from $5 SOVTWARE Quickbooks Pro $198 Micrasoit Office $7 Pro-CD $199 Windows 98 upgrade (box) $15