Town Close School Year 7 scientists visit the John Innes Centre

A number of our Year 7 pupils visited the John Innes Centre this week and enjoyed a thoroughly enriching scientific experience in their state-of-the-art facility.

They performed micropipetting in the lab, tissue culture (which is used to clone plants), chromatography of plant colour pigments, as well as a tour of the wider site. This involved viewing some of the genetically modified black tomatoes (containing a pigment from blackberries which is believed to improve heart health), and visiting the cereal seed gene bank which is dedicated to preserving the genes of over 20 000 varieties of crops – past and present! They also visited the library where they viewed a very rare book published in 1511.

It was a fantastic opportunity to immerse our potential future scientists in an innovative scientific environment focused on ground breaking research and experimentation. Thank you very much to the Centre for hosting us.