Last weekend, the ABE MA Team welcomed 10 Boston Public School science teachers to the ABE MA community. These teachers represent four schools in the district, three of which are totally new to the ABE Program. A huge thank you to ABE MA Teacher, Amanda Dillingham (East Boston High School), for co-leading the PD workshop! 

Congratulations to ABE MA Teacher, Deb O'Reilly (Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical High School) for winning the 2021 Outstanding Biology Teacher Award (OBTA)! We are incredibly proud of you! 

Established in 1962, the Outstanding Biology Teacher Award (OBTA) is one of the most prestigious honors NABT gives to biology teachers. Each year, the program attempts to recognize an outstanding biology educator (grades 7-12) in each of the 50 states; Washington, DC; Canada; Puerto Rico; and overseas territories. 

This year, NABT was proud to name 22 OBTA Honorees. These teachers join the ranks of over 3000 teachers who demonstrate excellence in the classroom, devotion to their students, and a degree of professionalism that their professional colleagues recognize as truly "outstanding."

Newly knighted ABE MA Teacher, Andre Williams (East Boston High School), sits down with MLSC President, Kenn Turner and Renee Connolly, Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer at Merck to discuss why collaboration is key to growth.

ABE MA Teacher, Dr. Laurie Jackson-Grusby (Brockton High School), has been named as one of the 2021 - 2022 ABE Master Teacher Fellows! Laurie is in her fifth year of teaching biotechnology at Brockton High School (BHS) since changing careers from academic biomedical research. She serves as the academic lead for the MLSC-sponsored Apprenticeship Program and the DESE-sponsored Innovation Pathway in Healthcare at BHS.

This year’s Fellows represent a wide variety of ABE program sites: Greater Los Angeles Area, Metro Washington D.C. Area, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, Italy, Turkey, and Australia.

More photos are coming in! Share your photos sporting your new ABE MA gear; email a photo to Alia or post on social media with the hashtag #ABEMA! 

ABE MA Teacher, Amanda Dillingham (East Boston High School), was asked to participate on a panel to discuss ways to create access and opportunity related to STEM education, as well as STEM college and career readiness. The event, Learning Online: Increasing access and opportunity in STEM education and fields, was moderated by HGSE Dean Bridget Terry Long.

Thank you for giving LabXchange, ABE, and Alia shout-outs during the event, Amanda! 

This Month's Pick: Protein Based COVID Vaccines

Some people can’t get current COVID-19 vaccines for health reasons, but protein-based vaccines offer hope that they might soon be immunized. To elicit a protective immune response, these shots deliver proteins, along with immunity-stimulating adjuvants, directly to a person’s cells, rather than sending in a fragment of genetic code that the cells must read to synthesize the proteins themselves. After months of quality-control setbacks and manufacturing delays, the protein-based jab from US biotechnology firm Novavax has just received its first emergency-use authorization, in Indonesia. Meanwhile, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, based in China, and Biological E in India are on track to file for authorization in various countries in the coming weeks and months.

Here we highlight articles and resources from Nature Briefing. You can sign up for their daily newsletter here. It's a great way to stay current on what's going on in science news (plus they state how long each piece takes to go through or interact with).