Well, the first day is over and we have survived to our first power cut. Let’s hope it gets back at some point tonight and the temperature-sensitive molecular biology reagents, which already traveled in pretty bad conditions from South Africa, don’t suffer too much of a heat-shock.
This afternoon we’ve had an introductory lecture with Dr. Wuyep (sorry, with Ponch) that by giving only a few paintbrushes about the principles of inheritance has already promoted interesting discussions. We have had the chance to see how enthusiastic our students are, and how passionate they can be when defending their positions, even though they sometimes change sides in the middle of the heat, hehe. A discussion on how the presence of malaria can influence the prevalence of sickle-cell anaemia opened the door for future conversations on genetic counseling, bioethics and the responsibility of scientists towards society, and a very lively conversation about the inheritance of skin color got the crowd most excited exchanging arguments pro and against genetic or environmental influence.
We are very excited to see how motivated our students are and how quickly they have started interacting with each other and with the faculty. We know that we are going to have to struggle through some protocols and make a bit of science alla MacGyver but, with so much human potential in our hands, this smells success already.
Tomorrow at 9am, more!
