Within the course of the two-week camp the participants scientifically work on a topic of their choice, which they will publically present to an interested audience at the end. To be able to cope with the highly demanding content of the research topics, they receive competent help from different areas of science, economy and research. Therefor a science and economy day always takes place at the beginning of the camp, where the young participants discuss their topics and interests with experts from companies, institutes and research institutions, get an insight into the respective departments and can get their questions answered.
On August 3rd 2012 Rebecca Michael (14), who has been taking part in the jun.iversity-Camp in Jena for the 4th time, visited the Leibniz Institute for Age Research - Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI), to get help and valuable suggestions for her research topic.
For several years, Rebecca has been devoting herself to marine biological topics (e.g. pot whales) and now studies a special species of jellyfish in the Mediterranean sea that possesses the astonishing ability to regenerate all its cells - correspondingly to the given living conditions.
In the research group Molecular Genetics and under the direction of Professor Christoph Englert, Rebecca learnt lots of interesting facts about zebra fish, model organisms in biology. Among other things, Christina Ebert, Uta Naumann und Beate Seliger explained to Rebecca how the fish are appropriately kept, how the mating of the fish is prepared and subsequently the eggs collected. Rebecca also learnt about the embryonic stages of zebra fish and how the green fluorescing kidneys of „luminous“ zebra fish can be watched under the microscope. Subsequently, Rebecca was given the opportunity to try many things herself and prove her experimental skills.
Moreover she learnt something about the sensational ability of the zebra fish to regenerate their kidneys, a similar effect to the one found in the aforementioned jellyfish. She also got to know another interesting fish, the turquoise killifish Nothobranchius furzeri, which is a new animal model for age research and plays an important role in many of the research projects at the institute.
Like the other participants of the summer camp, Rebecca will publicly present her research work on Friday, August 10th 2012 during the closing event (14.00-17.30 h) in the auditorium of the University of Applied Sciences Jena.
