Published: August 15, 2008 11:09 pm            

PROFILE: Tonawanda boy, 12, learns all about biology

Pop quiz: define “gel electrophoresis.”

How about “wolbachia” or a “polymerase chain reaction?”

If you’ve never heard of any of these terms, you’re certainly not alone, but if you want the answers you can always consult 12-year-old Kyle Maracle.

Kyle, who will be entering the eighth-grade at Tonawanda Middle School next month, learned all about wolbachia and insect DNA during a two-week biology seminar sponsored by the University at Buffalo and the Buffalo Museum of Science.

The summer camp is funded through a $100,000 grant from the New York State Education Department’s Excelsior Scholars Program.

Kyle and the approximately 45 other area students selected for the program had to pass a rigorous application process, and were eligible to apply only if they had an overall academic average of 90 or above and scored high on the state math and English Language Arts assessments.

The program featured another Tonawanda student — Jazmine Hernandez — and Kelsey Ross, of North Tonawanda.

The students met for six hours every day beginning Aug. 4 at the Charles R. Drew Science Magnet School at the Buffalo Museum of Science. The program wrapped up Friday with the students giving PowerPoint presentations on their findings.

As part of the program, they visited Tifft Farms to collect bugs, from which they would extract DNA, the process for which sounds like every 12-year-old boy’s dream. “We mashed it up to get the DNA out of the bug and then ran it through a centrifuge,” Kyle said.

Along the way, the students conducted a polymerase chain reaction, which allowed them to produce copies of a bug’s specific DNA sequence, and used gel electrophoresis as part of the DNA sequencing process.

“I liked the whole process,” Kyle said. “It made me feel like I was a real scientist.”

The point of all this was to determine which bugs had wolbachia, a bacteria that causes feminization in insects; the bugs then reproduce asexually. This was all explained in scientific detail by Kyle, who also explained that “a dude a long time ago discovered (wolbachia) back in 1927 and, of course, back then people didn’t believe him. In 1999, they discovered it again and everyone actually started to believe it.”

Kyle’s mother, Josephine Balzano, learned of the Excelsior Scholars program through a co-worker who also works at UB. “He always tended to like science. It’s one of his better subjects,” said Kyle’s dad, Gibson Maracle.

Gibson Maracle said his son initially wasn’t too keen on participating in the program. “He wasn’t as excited as I was,” Maracle said. “After the first day he was real excited about going there, because...what they were doing was all hands on.”

Each day began at 8:30 with a discussion session, followed by lab work and field sessions where the students traveled to places such as Roswell Park Cancer Institute and UB’s Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, the latter of which really impressed Kyle. “It was interesting. It was a new experience,” he said. “At first, I thought it was kind of weird and seemed dorky, but then I got more interested in it.”

So, based on his assessment of the experience, one might expect the sciences to be Kyle’s profession of choice. Not so. “I’m gonna be in the NHL, I know I am,” said Kyle, who plays ice hockey with the Wheatfield Blades. And if the professional hockey path doesn’t work out? “I’ll be a music producer.”

Contact reporter David J. Hill at 693-1000, ext. 115.

        

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