High school students from 10 rural Wisconsin school districts heard about stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes from Timothy Kamp, MD, PhD, professor, Cardiovascular Medicine and Dr. Herman and Ailene Tuchman Chair in Clinical Cardiology. The story was reported by Madison news outlet The Cap Times and University of Wisconsin-Madison News.

In July, 2017, the students spent four days on the UW-Madison campus for the camp, which is now in its 11th year. Tuition is free due to funding from several grants, including an endowment established by the Kathleen Smith, a former trustee of both the Morgridge Institute and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

After hearing a talk from Dr. Kamp about how cardiac stem cells are developed and tested for use in medical applications, the students conducted a laboratory investigation to observe the effect of verapamil on induced cardiomyocytes.

Resources:

• "UW-Madison summer science camp gives rural students a taste of life in the lab," The Capital Times, July 29, 2017
• "2017 rural summer science camp spans Wisconsin landscape," UW-Madison News, June 23, 2017

(File photo: UW-Madison/Jeff Miller. High school students learn about neural stem cell differentiation procedure during a Summer Science Camp held at the Embedded Teaching Lab in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on July 18, 2012.)