Celgene created a booth for the Science Festival EXPO 2009, and the Cancer Disparities project allowed an opportunity for students of various levels (high school, community college, university) to create components to supplement the “pharmaceutical video game” that Celgene used to teach Science Festival participants about the drug discovery process. The new components focused on pharmaceuticals and cancer disparities.

  

Fifty students from the School of Science and Technology at San Diego High were involved in the process of developing this science festival booth. Dr.s David Webb and Andrew Calabrese from Celgene visited a biotechnology class at San Diego High School’s School of Science & Technology. This academically rigorous course was the perfect opportunity to embrace scientists and cutting edge science in a flexible setting, with students who are science motivated. Dr. Webb introduced the concepts of drug discovery using the video game that was developed for use at the 2009 Expo. Dr. Ana Navarro of UCSD and Dr. Hazel Atuel of SDSU also visited the biotechnology classroom and gave students an overview of the complex issues surrounding cancer health disparities.

Mesa College Bridges to the Baccalaureate students also worked closely with Celgene scientists and the San Diego High School students. As the intermediaries between the various groups, the Mesa College Bridges to the Baccalaureate students visited both the Celgene headquarters and the biotechnology class to prepare for the booth. This tiered approach allowed students to understand the concept of “cancer disparities” and how researchers must navigate this delicate terrain in order to bring drugs to market.

The Science Festival booth component added a special quality to this program – it gave everyone a goal to work towards, and helped make it a more concrete and empowering experience for students. This year, the Celgene / Cancer Disparities booth was prominently positioned at a corner of the second level promenade, and therefore reached a large number of the 30,000 participants of the San Diego Science Festival EXPO. The Cancer Disparities Booth was funded by the SDSU-UCSD Cancer Center Partnership LAC stipend via Dr. Kim Barrett at UC San Diego, and allowed this multi-faceted “Scientist in Residence” to come together to teach the public about the topic of Cancer Disparities.