Written by: Amy Rogers, treasurer

Fourteen Manchester College students, Manchester chemistry professors, and nine medical professionals traveled to Nicaragua during January this year. Five days were spent in Managua. Before leaving for Mulukuku, the site of the medical practicum, our group learned about the history of Nicaragua, toured Managua, and visited a children=s hospital. These experiences helped aquaint us with the cultural, political, and social aspects of Nicaragua. On Saturday, January 8 we loaded an old U.S. school bus and traveled about nine hours to Mulukuku. The roads were paved from Managua to Rio Blanco. From Rio Blanco to Mulukuku the roads were dirt. During the two weeks we spent in Mulukuku, we saw about 2500 patients. Most of the patients were women and children. Parasites, malaria, fungus, and back and neck pain were the most common medical problems. Each day four doctors worked in Mulukuku while the other two traveled to a satellite clinic in neighboring communities. Manchester students worked with the doctors and the dentist, in the pharmacy filling prescriptions, or taking vital signs in intake. The weekend between the two weeks working at the clinic, we walked through the rainforest, swam in the Rio Tuma, and visited a farm. Everyone seemed to enjoy the time for fun and relaxation. After the second week at the clinic, we returned to Managua. We spent one day visiting the volcano Masaya and the market. Our last day in Nicaragua was at the beach. We traveled to Pochomil located on the Pacific coast.

Spring Semester's First Meeting

ACS held its first meeting of the new semester on Wednesday, February 9, 2000, in the Oakwood Hall Great Room. The members present shared pictures and stories from their January term 2000 experiences. Amy Rogers, Ariel Stilwell, Janel Bailey, and Jerry Seiler spent three weeks in Nicaragua, traveling with Dr. Ed Miller=s annual medical practicuum to underserved villages in the Nicaraguan countryside. We were regaled with tales of Ariel=s Anear-death experience@ in Mulukuku and Amy=s difficulties with officials in the Managua airport. Alex Blevins traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, for the second year in a row to spend his Jan term at the NASA Lewis Research Center. He worked there primarily on the development of fuel cells. Leela Setty, Andrew Hodges, Eliza Smoker, and Steve Knaus all stayed at cold, snowy Manchester College over January and took a class on campus.

I took a course in DNA Science (taught by Dr. Kreps). We spent the bulk of the morning in the lab learning the basics of genetic engineering. We transformed foreign DNA that had been inserted into plasmids into bacteria and selected for those bacteria that had picked up the foreign DNA. We used several techniques commonly used in the process of genetic engineering including electrophoresis, a Southern Blot, and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Restriction mapping of the plasmid pBLU was conducted, and we evaluated the genetic makeup of a segment of our own DNA by amplifying it using PCR. Ethical considerations of genetic engineering were also discussed in the lecture component of the course including the issue of the use of animals as Afactories@ for the production of human proteins.