Photo: Ruben van Vliet Fotografie 3 May 2019 Enthusiastic young scientists-to-be Back to news The science festival Expeditie NEXT on May 2nd, initiated by Dutch funding organization NWO, was a great success. The aim of the festival was to spark curiosity in children between the ages of 8 and 14 and let them experience science. Among the over 100 booths at the festival were two booths from the Hubrecht Institute, one of which in collaboration with the Princes Máxima Center for pediatric oncology. The young scientists-to-be experimented with making growth medium for organoids and saw the development of real zebrafish embryos under the microscope. Photo: Hubrecht Institute At our “Fishing for genes” booth, the young visitors could follow the development of zebrafish embryos by looking at embryos that were born on that day, and embryos that were one, three and four days old. “It moved!” exclaimed one of the visitors while looking at one-day-old embryos under the microscope. “Are they alive?” Under another microscope they could look at a beating zebrafish heart, which left some of the visitors with their mouths agape in wonder. Photo: Ruben van Vliet Fotografie “Science is fun, science is fun” chanted an excited young visitors at our other booth, “Spying on organoids”. He then proceeded to make growth medium for lung organoids and was delighted at the bright pink color, which indicated that it worked! After making the growth medium the visitors looked at real organoids under the microscope and found out how much these mini-organs resembled the real organ from which they are made. We hope that our tireless and enthusiastic colleagues have inspired a new generation of curious scientists-to-be!
