We will confirm the receipt of your contact details and will let you know about upcoming training courses. Workshops for teachers who have never used our equipment, or teachers who would like to come to refresh are usually offered in September / October each year. Once you have attended the training, you are eligible to book equipment and reagents for your own classes. With this equipment, your students can then perform molecular biology experiments and experience how scientists work.

Please email ABE-Ireland@ucd.ie with your name, contact mobile number, school name, address, and contact telephone number.

Participation and loan of equipment and reagents is free of charge. Please note that we do not reimburse travelling costs.

• Every Irish Secondary school teacher can participate in the Amgen Biotech Experience programme. We recommend the programme in particular to teachers of Transition Year, 5th and 6th year Biology and Chemistry classes. We have also tailored content in line with the new Junior Cycle specification. 

• Hands-on training in current molecular biology techniques and experiments
• Educational material such as PPT presentations and manuals ready to use for your classes
• Professional laboratory equipment & reagents that you can borrow for your school FOR FREE
• Real-time technical support for your ABE classes

Ongoing training and professional development is a very important part of our programme. Therefore, we require at least one teacher per school to attend the training once per school year in order to be eligible for equipment booking. If you already completed training, it would be best to encourage a fellow teacher to attend this time round. For advanced laboratory exercises (i.e., Lab 3 and Lab 4), you will need to attend the training yourself though.

Lab 3 and 4 are more advanced and should only be used by teachers who already have performed Labs 1 and 2 at their school. It will be possible for you to book equipment and reagents for all four Labs in the next academic year.

We can only allow teachers who have been trained by us directly to perform ABE classes at their school. If your fellow teacher would like to use the ABE equipment for their class and they were not able to attend our training, you or another trained teacher will have to be present when your fellow teacher’s class is doing the ABE experiments. Please encourage your fellow teacher to shadow you during the ABE experiments in your own class and to contact us with regards to future training opportunities.

If you have been trained in ABE Ireland labs, you may book your kits through our kit booking form.

Yes, depending on the availability of the kits you can book kit as many times as you like throughout the year.

Yes, multiple teachers can use the same kit at the same time if they are in the same school, just let the ABE staff know when filling out the kit booking form for data collection purposes. 

You can collect the kits from any of our distribution centres [link where are we page] which include University College Dublin, Drumcondra Education Centre, Laois Education Centre, and Monaghan Education Centre. 

Yes, you must return your kit to wherever you collected it from.

Yes, you can send your colleague or friend to pick up and return the kit from any of our distribution centres. Please let us know in advance if you plan on doing this.

No, unfortunately the kits get too damaged when couriered so we do not offer this option.

You can have the kit for 2 weeks if loaning Labs 1+2. You can have 3 weeks if loaning Labs 1-4. If longer is required, please request this in the kit booking form.

Only the practice gels for Lab 1 (micropipetting) can be reused - the wells can be rinsed with water to remove the dye and used again if wanted.

Gels that have been used for DNA gel electrophoresis (Lab 2, 3, 4 and 5) cannot be reused. After usage, they need to be placed in the waste bags provided and returned back to ABE for a disposal.

There are few things you can do to improve the quality of the DNA bands: 1) Make sure your blue light is switched to the higher intensity (press the button with a bigger bulb). 2) Place your gel electrophoresis equipment in a shaded area of the classroom or switch off the light in the room. 3) Use a camera to take a photo of the gel. They may be more visible on your camera screen. 4) If you have used the grey insert in the gel electrophoresis tank (the piece of plastic that sits under the gel in the electrophoresis tank) when loading samples, replace it with the black insert. 5) For your next class, increase the amount of sample DNA. We advise loading 10 μl, however 15 μl might improve the visibility of bands.