Research Assistant Tamula Patterson (Cellular and Molecular Biology) assists a high school student with a research project as part of the BioTech program, 1994.Just as today’s participants in the School of Medicine’s SIBS and PARAdiGM programs gain invaluable experience doing summer research in UAB’s laboratories, as these images from the UAB Archives show, university faculty and staff have long nurtured the aspirations of young scientists through similar programs. As a January 1961 issue of the Medical Center Bulletin states, programs such as these provide the chance for young people to “view the mysteries of science and medicine close up, and perhaps to assist in the solution of some of them.”

Charles D. Kochakian, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry, with students at work in his Laboratory for Experimental Endrocinology, 1960s. As inaugural chairman of the Cancer Research Committee, in 1960 Dr. Kochakian became the advisor for a program to sponsor high school students as summer assistants in research laboratories.Research Associate Robert Linkowski assists a high school student during her summer research in the Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1978.Four high school students work on campus as part of the American Cancer Society’s youth research training program, 1965.Terry L. Hickey, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate School (back left), with members of the Minority High School Research Apprentice Program, 1990. Initiated in 1978, the program matched students with UAB faculty members for 10 weeks of laboratory work during the summer.