RKYHS is proud to announce the launch of the JKHA/RKYHS Scientific Research Training Institute (SRTI), which focuses on training students to conduct real scientific research on real world problems. This is in line with the school’s overall approach of “Learning Science By Doing Science.” Thanks to a generous pilot grant from the Steven and Beverly Rubenstein Foundation, RKYHS is able to offer advanced science and research training to their students at a level rarely found in a college setting let alone at the high school level.

As part of the new institute, they have now acquired some extraordinary equipment and added capabilities to the already robust RKYHS STEM program, including an ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) instrument for isolation and characterization of small molecules and a scanning electron microscope (SEM), capable of visualizing images at magnifications approaching 250,000 times. Only a handful of high schools in the country have such an instrument, giving the RKYHS and SRTI students extraordinary capabilities to peek into a submicroscopic world rarely seen by high school students research. In addition, they are now completing installation of their new tissue culture laboratory, which enables the RKYHS/SRTI students to grow mammalian cells—including human cells so that they can further investigate and test the genetic manipulations that they are doing in the successful genetic engineering program, which already boasts a well-equipped, advanced molecular genetics laboratory. Student groups are already working on a prototype 3D-bioprinter in order to “print” living tissue from cells grown in in the tissue culture lab.

The RKYHS Science, STEM and SRTI programs set RKYHS apart, teaching critical thinking skills, developing creative approaches to problem solving and fostering invention and innovation.