NIH educator comes to AHS

    AHS’s IB Biology students were visited last week by Jeff Witherly from the National Institute of Health in Bethesda. Witherly was among the 70 educators from NIH who are traveling around area schools to inform students about the Human Genome Project. While at AHS he discussed the increased importance of genetics over the last few decades.

    “When your parents were in school, they told them genetics will be important, but they didn’t believe it. And now DNA genomes are becoming important,” said Witherly.

    However, because of a tight schedule, he quickly went through the PowerPoint presentation he had prepared while going over the basics of biology.

    “It was really short and it kind of felt rushed. He couldn’t tell us everything he wanted to say,” said senior Linda Nguyen.

    For many of the biology students, it was more of a refresher of what they already know. “I already learned that stuff in biology class, so it was kind of repeating what I had already been taught,” said Nguyen.

    However, it was nice to have an expert’s opinion on the subject. “It was more on a professional level and he’s been in that field for a while, so he knows what’s going on in the subject of DNA,” said Nguyen.

    “He was great and very informative,” said junior Rebecca Takele.

    Witherly presented new advancements like personalized medicine, which uses genome scans to determine if a person could be predisposed to a hereditary condtion. He also gave the students advice and information about career and job opportunities.

    “It was good to hear about internships at the NIH. I talked to him personally and he referred me to the Department of Neurobiology, since that is the field that I want to go into,” said junior Mahroo Haibari.