BROOKINGS — A trio of recent Brookings High School graduates has been gaining hands-on experience at Dakota BioWorx this summer.
Brookings School District Superintendent Summer Schultz said this was part of a new collaboration between the school district, the SDSU Research Park and Dakota BioWorx… “This project — this year, this summer — for ten weeks, three of our most recent grads are doing things with a professor at SDSU who is just taking their learning and their opportunity to a really high level, working with fermentation and dyes and things that we just don’t have those resources to do; but with this collaboration, they’re getting these hands-on opportunities that are building their repertoire of knowledge when they’re moving on post-school.”
Schultz said this is a win-win for students, the school and the regional economy… “It’s also helping to build and increase that workforce pipeline in this region in the science and STEM area, and so I do believe this collaboration is beneficial for our region, our community but our students most importantly. For me as well, it’s been so fun to just have people from different walks come together and say we’re going to make these collaborations and partnerships. It’s been fun to have, and this one was just everything I could’ve imagined when I asked for help.”
Recent BHS grads Madyson Oines, Waylon Lowe and Quinton Zhu are helping with SDSU Professor Ananda Nanjundaswamy’s ongoing research on developing natural food dyes. This summer, they’ve been working to grow yeast cells that produce a pink pigment, hoping to eventually upscale the work to larger fermenters.
