On the sidelines of the SFTCG-French Society of Cellular and Gene Therapy congress which took place in Bordeaux from March 19 to 21, about ten scientists welcomed about fifty high school students from Talence for workshops to discover biological sciences.

On the agenda:

• Banana DNA extraction

• Zebrafish observation

• Microscopic observation of slides of the nervous system

• Pipetting experimentation and confidence interval analysis

• Mysteries surrounding DNA analysis

• Discovery of the use of viruses for gene therapy

Sandrine Fédou and Géraldine Siegfried , from the XenoFish platform, part of team 2 in our unit, were present to demonstrate zebrafish larvae at different stages of development under a microscope. They also explained to the high school students how this animal model is useful to the scientific community.

The communications department of our regional Inserm delegation was also present to showcase the various careers within Inserm's units and administrations. The students had the opportunity to discover the beautiful conference room at the University of Bordeaux, the Agora du Haut Carré. Congratulations to the SFTCG for organizing these opportunities to share information with the high school students. We hope they have sparked an interest in scientific careers!