Future medicine-makers get a peek into the industry – Andover Townsman

It isn't often that you see teens huddled around beakers and graduated cylinders, looking at chemistry equations, wearing slightly over-sized lab coats over their jeans and sneakers. Outside of a classroom, that is.

But high school students got to do just that, in a real laboratory, working alongside real scientists, just last week.

The Eisai Andover innovative Medicines Institute (AiM) on Corporate Drive is a facility where scientists from many different sciences work to develop medicines for diseases such as Alzheimers and cancer. AiM is a part of Eisai, an international human health care company that creates products and conducts medicine research.

AiM held a week-long event for high school students to educate them about medicine and science on the week of Aug. 14.The event was put together by Nadeem Sarwar, president of AiM.

Sarwar had done this a few years ago and it was very successful," said Sarah Buco, senior human resources manager of Eisai US. "It was a similar approach that was hands-on, but also had lectures, almost like science camp."

Students listened to lectures, participated in experiments like synthesizing aspirin, and prepared a presentation based on research during their time at AiM.

We want to inspire the next generation of medicine makers," said Sarwar. "We feel privileged that our job is to make medicines. We are trying to find cures for Alzheimers and cancer, and we're very proud that that's our job. We want to make sure making medicines is a career that young people have in mind."

It's been a lot of fun for them and even more so for us," added Sarwar. "Trying to communicate to high school children what you do in an engaging way isn't easy, we're very used to our scientific jargon. It's a chance for us to step back and think about what we really do and why. I think the kids are having fun, both learning the number of things it takes to make medicine, but also getting their hands dirty."

All of the AiM employees who participated in the event did so on a volunteer basis, which ended up being about 20 scientists.

"I volunteered because I've always wanted to be involved in education as well. I'm here to help inspire the next generation the way I was inspired, said Branko Mitasev, principal scientist in chemistry at AiM.

Another volunteer, Noel Taylor, a scientist for AiM, added: Its a great opportunity for students to see in real life what goes on at a pharmaceuticalcompany. I wish they had a program like this when I was going through high school."

A total of nine high school students from grades 9-12 attended the event.

"We want to make sure we're communicating the diversity of science that goes into making medicine,"Sarwar said."It's very broad spanning biology, chemistry, genetics, and a number of other sciences. The other thing is culture. We are very proud of the diversity of cultures that are under our roof. We have people from several continents. We have interns from Scotland, from England, from Japan, from local high schools. One key exposure we want to give to people is the multicultural environment and the dynamic environment you get to work in with drug discovery."

The opportunity was open to friends and family of AiM workers, but based on the success of last week's session, more similar events may be open to the public in the future.

Our hope that if this is successful and our feeling is that it has been, we would do it repeatedly. It's the second time we've done something like this and we'd like to expand it," Sarwar said.

"There is definitely a passion around energizing people around the medicines and sciences here. It's definitely a passion of Nadeem's. In the last few years he has really looked for opportunities to educate students and get them excited and passionate about the idea of working in science and being a scientist or having a STEM job," said Buco.

Follow Kelsey Bode on Twitter @Kelsey_Bode

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Future medicine-makers get a peek into the industry - Andover Townsman