Nearly 60 ESO and batxillerat students from Hospitalet de Llobregat have visited the different research facilities at the Institut Català d’Oncologia (ICO). This iniciative is part of the project ‘Year of the Science’.

The students have analyzed the difference between normal tissue and some with cancer; they have seen what a DNA molecule is like and the way in which several laboratory devices work. They have also visited the area where research animals are; there they could see transgenic mice.

The Institut Català d’Oncologia has organized three visits so that students of secondary school and batxillerat from Hospitalet de Llobregat get to know the different laboratories and equipments that ICO dedicates to research. These visits have been useful because the students could understand how scientists work and the way they help to fight against disease.

These students could compare images of healthy tissue and tissues with tumours and they have seen a DNA molecule. Accompanied by scientists of the centre, they could also observe several devices and machines used at the laboratory and visit the area for the animals destined to research. There they could observe normal mice and transgenic mice and they have learnt how this research helps to know the behaviour of tumours and the drugs to fight them.

The activity has been attended by students of first year of batxillerat of the IES Torres i Bages, first and second years of batxillerat of IES Llobregat and of fourth of ESO of the Xaloc school. A total of 60 students will have come to the centre. We have organized the last visit for today, with students of third of ESO of the IES Torres i Bages.

This iniciative is part of the Escolab project, launched by the Comissionat de Cultura Científica de l’Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB) within the ‘Year of the Science’. Escolab has the aim of making the work of research centres closer to students in order to stimulate scientific vocations, that is to say, the interest of the youths to dedicate themselves to research, an activity consideread fundamental for the development of the society of knowledge in our country.