Renz Research Projects

Mr. Renz has been in the Tukwila School District since it was called the South Central School District. He did his student teaching in the 5th Grade at Thorndyke Elementary School with Mr. Jack Skeel during the 1989-1990 school year. He was then hired as a 4th Grade teacher at Thorndyke Elementary School on June 5, 1990. He transferred to the Foster High School in September of 1997. 

In his spare time, Mr. Renz enjoys SCUBA diving, supporting women's soccer (Go Seattle Reign!) and travelling internationally. During the summer of 2023, he was fortunate to be able to do all three at the same time travelling to watch the 2023 Women's World Cup. 

Link to Resume aka Curriculum Vitae

We successfully evolved caffeine-tolerant clones in collaboration with high school classrooms using our yEvo protocol. The most commonly observed mutations corroborate previous findings that yeast evolved to have increased caffeine tolerance acquire different mutations than the mutation profile from other selective pressures like azole drugs. 

Research completed under the guidance of Dr. Renee C. Geck of the Dunham Lab by Foster High School's Intro to Biotech class as part of the yEvo project 2022-2023 School year. 

Under the mentorship of Dr. Tamanash Bhattacharya in the Harmit S. Malik Lab at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, an investigation looking at an Iris-like domesticated viral gene to determine when it was domesticated by mosquitos and other related insects. Also investigated were the source of the original viral gene and the possible function of the gene. Research was primarily focused on Bioinformatics, using BLAST extensively to compare gene sequences.

The Slide Deck that was used to present the results of my research to the Malik Lab can be accessed here. 

Research completed as part of the Hutch Fellowship for Excellence in STEM Teaching Summer of 2021. 

Under the mentorship of Kim Foster, a former student FHS c/o 2011, in the Marie Bleakley Lab at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, an investigation looking for new antigens to use for immunotherapies. Research was primarily focused on cell culturing, cell counting and flow cytometry. First summer was intended to be used for training with the main project scheduled for the second summer. The pandemic hit, the Hutch shut down, and the mentor moved on to an Immunology PhD program at the University of Washington. The decision was made to spend the second summer in a different lab.  

Research completed as part of the Hutch Fellowship for Excellence in STEM Teaching Summer of 2019. 

Research was done to determine if students would be more likely to pursue science careers if they were introduced to high level Biotechnology skills and techniques in the High School environment. 

Research was completed as part of the Supplemental Grant associated with the M.J. Murdock's Partners in Science Program in 2015-2016.

This is the slide deck used for the oral presentation of this research as presented at the Partners In Science National Conference in January of 2014. The presentation was meant to present the scientific matter in an educational model. The QPOE2 model, developed by Marty Coon as part of his doctoral thesis at the Van Andel Education Institute, was piloted by three teachers in the 2013-14 PIS cohort. Following the pilot, the QPOE2 model was implemented for all of the 2014-15 cohort of the M.J. Murdock's Charitable Trusts' Partners in Science Program.  This presentation pushed the boundaries of what was considered "acceptable" for a scientific research oral presentation and was met with thunderous applause and a wealth of questions.

Research was completed as part of the M.J. Murdock's Partners in Science Program in 2013-2014.

Under the mentorship of Dr. Marian Avril in the Joe Smith Lab at Seattle BioMed a two summer investigation into the different binding mechanisms that the proteins expressed in malaria infected red blood cells attach to cerebral tissues, the cause of cerebral malaria. A further investigation was done to determine if bioinformatics could be used to predict the binding mechanisms of previously undocumented proteins. Research was primarily focused on using PCR techniques, DNA and protein purification, bacterial transformation and bioinformatics.

Research was completed as part of the M.J. Murdock's Partners in Science Program in 2013-2014.