Three Young Harborfields SPARK Scientists Train At Brookhaven Lab

Photo courtesy of Harborfields Central School District

Harborfields High School students Clarissa Bues, Matt Cook and Anna Duff are currently participating in the Student Partnerships for Advanced Research and Knowledge program at Brookhaven National Laboratory, which provides high schoolers an opportunity to become visiting researchers at the lab’s scientific facilities.

During the summer, the three SPARK students were trained in the process of protein crystallization by two BNL scientists. Throughout the winter, they will work on crystallizing a novel protein for analysis in the National Synchrotron Light Source II in order to publish their structure in the Protein Data Bank. This state-of-the-art device is able to image proteins to some of the highest resolutions in the world.