Science Festivals

Each year, the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology participates in different Science Festivals across the UAE. These festivals include the Abu Dhabi Science Festival, Think Science, Dubai, and Aspen Abu Dhabi Ideas Forum. Participation in these Science Festivals guides the interest and passion for science in UAE youths toward embracing careers in research and innovation.

Our goal for these events are educating the public about general topics in biology using the slogan "learning is fun Our installations provide the opportunity to observe the living world, from the molecular to cellular and animal scales, using microscopes and DNA extraction techniques. Some simple experiments such as microscopic observation of their cheek cells ("Cell-fie"), mouth bacteria, and wild type vs. mutant C. elegans worms have been presented. Another installation focused on Fruit fly: Drosophila life cycle, which gave a closer look at their morphology using the microscope.

Our booths are always extremely popular, with hundreds of visitors passing through at each of these festivals. Participants left our booths with photos of themselves and their cells, in addition to necklaces and bracelets containing vials of DNA extracted from strawberries using household products.