This project is funded through a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA). The goal of the SEPA program is to invest in educational activities, including interactive digital media resources, that complement or enhance workforce training to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs. SEPA encourages interactive partnerships between biomedical and clinical researchers and pre-kindergarten to grade 12 (P-12) pre-service and in-service teachers, schools and other interested organizations. SEPA supports diversity in the workforce by providing opportunities for students from underserved communities to consider careers in basic or clinical research, and provides teachers with professional development in science content and teaching skills

The Western New York Genetics in Research and Health Care Partnership was designed to serve as a pipeline for the recruitment of high school students into STEM careers, with an emphasis on genomics and bioinformatics. The Partnership is developing better ways to teach bioinformatics through the use of hands-on, state-of-the-art bioinformatics tools, as well as building awareness of careers in life science and health care. Faculty from the University at Buffalo and the New York State Area Health Education Center System (NYS AHEC) recruited teachers within the Erie Niagara AHEC (EN AHEC) and WNY Rural AHEC (WNY-R AHEC) regions into the SEPA program. The teachers were trained during Summer 2019 to use the GENI-ACT (Genomics Education National Initiative – Annotation Collaboration Toolkit). GENI-ACT is an online toolkit that consolidates publicly available bioinformatics tools into a single platform and offers collaboration tools and resources for functional genomic studies. The summer workshop increased teachers’ knowledge of bioinformatics and allowed them to gain experience with bioinformatics software for classroom use.

During Fall 2019, teachers and AHEC center staff held multiple recruitment activities to attract student interest within the fields of genetics and bioinformatics. During Spring 2020, the teachers worked with interested students to complete genome annotation activities using nine GENI-ACT modules. The hands-on experience provided opportunities for the students to find, understand, and critically evaluate research, as well as to learn how to access databases of information.