We are pleased to report that one of the RKYHS Scientific Research Training Institute (SRTI) student projects was presented recently at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAI) annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The paper presented was entitled, “An Object Detection System for Identifying Pollen Species” and included three RKYHS student authors, Roey Novick, Shira Elisha and Tamar Benzvi and is part of an ongoing SRTI collaboration with Dr. Leonard Bielory and the Aerobiology Center at Kean University.

The pollen identification project is continuing with several lower classmen and involves significant components of engineering, computer science, molecular biology and advanced microscopy. RKYHS looks forward to more scientific publications originating from this project with student authors going forward.

The STRI at RKYHS provides participating students with unique and advanced training in conducting real scientific research. Using a classic mentor-student approach, students learn how to analyze scientific literature, appropriately frame their question of interest and how to target and design (and redesign) experiments that will help elucidate an understanding of the question at issue. As part of this program students have embarked on significant and relevant research topics

The SRTI/RKYHS facility makes extraordinary equipment available to RKYHS students facilitating original research, including an advanced molecular genetics laboratory for manipulating DNA, a tissue culture laboratory for growing mammalian (including human) cells, an electronics laboratory for building devices, a scanning electron microscope (SEM) for visualizing samples at magnifications approaching 250,000, a fluorescence, phase-contrast microscope for identifying molecules in living cells, and an ultra high performance liquid chromatography device for identifying and characterizing molecular compounds. A fabrication laboratory with laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC machines and a robotics laboratory are also available.