Ellen Wright's biology students conducted an experiment yesterday at Carnegie Museum of Natural History but they may have felt like visitors to the set of television's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Perry Traditional Academy junior Brittany Wolfgang, an aide to teacher Ellen Wright, uses a micropipette to divide samples for DNA extraction in the new Fisher Scientific Biotechnology Laboratory at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Click photo for larger image.

After donning surgical gloves and plastic goggles, the 20 high school students used gel and electricity to break apart strands of DNA, the molecules that contain unique genetic material found in every creature.

"I'm a big believer in science out of the classroom," said Ms. Wright, who has taught biology at Perry Traditional Academy on the North Side for 16 years.

Ms. Wright's students spent the morning in the new Fisher Scientific Biotechnology Lab, which opens to the public Saturday.

The lab's curriculum is geared to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders and is based on National Science Education standards. The curriculum will be expanded for all children and adults. Ms. Wright and Lauren Giarratani, a research specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE), will write the expanded curriculum.

Ms. Wright's students used gel boxes to perform electrophoresis, a scientific method that uses electricity to amplify and separate DNA proteins.

"The DNA has a certain pattern to it. There are enzymes that can cut the DNA. So, using certain enzymes on certain pieces of DNA gives you a consistent pattern that you can then compare to other patterns," Ms. Wright said.

The biology teacher became fascinated by biotechnology in the early 1990s.

"In the biotechnology class, I tell them that it's hard to define biotechnology because it crosses so many disciplines and it can be applied in so many different ways. But what tends to be consistent are the tools that are used, the electrophoresis," Ms. Wright said.

Founded in Pittsburgh in 1902, Fisher Scientific supplies more than 600,000 products and services to scientists at hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, universities and government agencies. The company donated the materials, equipment and supplies for the new biotechnology lab.

Ed Pesicka, general manager of Fisher Scientific Research, said the company's goal in partnering with the museum is to "help educate young people and foster scientific discovery in the Pittsburgh region."

The opening of the biotechnology lab marks the second time in six months that Fisher Scientific has donated new, necessary equipment to the natural history museum.

In May, the museum opened a new molecular lab on the building's third floor. It is used primarily by the museum's entomologists and botanists. At the start of this year, the old molecular lab was closed to make room for the $35 million expansion of Dinosaur Hall.

The natural history museum received more good news this week. A federal Save Our Treasures grant of $450,000 will allow the museum to install climate control in what is known informally among museum staff as the big bone room and the little bone room.

These storage areas house 103,000 specimens of fossil vertebrates, including Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs from Wyoming, Utah and Montana.