News

Mankind has been farming plants since about 10'000 years ago and has been constantly improving them. However, the rapid development of knowledge about plant genomes and gene functions that start in this millennium already has significant implications for their farming, and the recent introduction of innovative techniques is revolutionizing the possibility to precisely affect individual genes. With these new tools, we will be able to more efficiently make plants resilient against climate change and parasites, which altogether reduce yearly worldwide agricultural production by a third. It is thus important that Science students have the necessary information to understand the magnitude of these innovations, so that they can transmit them to the students, without sensationalisms and preconceived notions.

The project "Let's Be a Scientist!", organised by ABE Italy together with TIGEM (Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine) and the Scuola Superiore Meridionale (SSM), allows the best students from ABE Italy schools to put on a lab coat and have a first-hand experience of the research world. Students are selected through a knowledge- and competence-based test on Biology and Chemistry topics, and they are followed in this experience by a TIGEM researcher and by a bespoke ABE Italy team.

The teacher training course "Is the future here? Challenges and perspectives of precision medicine" ("Il futuro è adesso? Sfide e prospettive della medicina di precisione"), organized by the Liceo Classico e Linguistico G.D. Romagnosi, started on January 18th, 2024.

The course consists of three phases and answers a shared need to acquire updated knowledge about the innovative approach of precision medicine and to reflect on factors implicated in its use, in order to develop interdisciplinary teaching proposals.

The ABE Program Office is excited to announce the fourth cohort of the Global ABE Master Teacher Fellowship. It was a highly competitive field of applicants from ABE sites globally. The Fellowship was designed to address the need for supporting the development of teachers who have a passion for ABE and biotechnology. Each Fellow will receive a stipend and targeted support for their own personal professional development. Fellows will meet monthly to collaborate and brainstorm on ABE pedagogy and experiences for their students...

2023 Edition of the FISV DAYS, titled WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE from diet to evolution.

The FISV Days, through short talks held by speakers from Italian Universities and Research Institutions, address the most debated topics in Life Sciences in an easy and accessible way...

ABE site Italy (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.net/it/eng) is an international training program that has been active in Italy since 2017, where it is organised by ANISN (Associazione Nazionale Insegnanti di Scienze Naturali - National Association of Natural Sciences Teachers), together with, among others, the University of Naples "Federico II", the IBBR (Istituto di Bioscienze e Biorisorse del CNR - CNR Bioscience and Bioresources Institute), the University of Camerino, and the Scuola Superiore Meridionale.

ABE site Italy also takes advantage of the international cooperation with a solid network of 27 similar ABE sites, which are active in three continents and coordinated by prestigious institutions (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.com/where-we-are). In particular, ABE site Italy is twinned with ABE site Japan at the University of Tokyo, and with ABE site France at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris...

Executive directors of the training course: Ilaria Caldarelli and Silvia Bellocchio. ABE Italy ambassadors and members of the ABE Italy training team.

Sofia platform code: 87708 
Applications can be submitted from the 23rd of September to the 20th of October.

The training course is aimed at veteran ABE Italy teachers working in the regions where the program is active: Lombardy, Campania, Lazio, Apulia, Basilicata, Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Emilia Romagna, Sicily, and Sardinia.

The course will be enacted in blended mode and will last 15 hours in total, divided between the following phases...

The ABE Italy event "The art of teaching to ignite the passion for Science - Exploring the symphonies of Molecular Biology", held in Spoleto on July 7th, 2023, has been the subject of articles in 10 local and national news publications, reaching over 2 million people...

The second edition of the ABE Italy event "The art of teaching to ignite the passion for Science - Exploring the symphonies of Molecular Biology" will take place in Spoleto (Perugia) on July 7th, 2023, at the cinema "Sala Pegasus".

The event will start at 9:30am, with introductory statements from the local Authorities and the ABE project managers, and will last until 7:00pm. In addition to the many talks, the event will conclude with contributions by teachers and students involved in the ABE Italy project, with a moment of recognition for the ABE Italy Teachers, and with the delivery of the "Francesca Traclò" award.

In collaboration with the Scuola Superiore Meridionale (SSM), the ABE Italy program has started a project called "Let's be a Scientist", a one-week full-immersion course at the research labs of TIGEM (Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine, Pozzuoli). ABE schools put forward their students in order to secure one of the six available places. 58 students from ten Italian regions took part in the selection process, which consisted of a multiple-choice test with questions both in Italian and English, in order to test the students' knowledge and competence in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, human anatomy and physiology...

The precision medicine ABE experience that was held at the Istituto Omnicomprensivo "Mattioli - D'acquisto" in San Salvo (Chieti, Abruzzo) was mentioned by the online newspaper "Chiaro quotidiano", which published an article about it (in Italian): Al “Mattioli-D’Acquisto” di San Salvo gli studenti alle prese con la Medicina di precisione ...

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Gregor Johann Mendel's birth (20th of July, 1822), the Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics (Società Italiana di Genetica Agraria, SIGA) is launching a contest called "Following in Mendel's footprint" ("Sulle orme di Mendel").

The project stems from an idea by the young members of the Next Generation SIGA (NGS) group.

A prize will be awarded to videos or images...

ABE site Italy (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.net/it/eng) is an international training program for high school teachers coordinated by the EDC (Education Development Center) of Boston (USA) and supported by the AMGEN Foundation. In Italy, it has been organised since 2017 by ANISN (Associazione Nazionale Insegnanti di Scienze Naturali - National Association of Natural Sciences Teachers), together with, among others, the University of Naples "Federico II" and the IBBR (Istituto di Bioscienze e Biorisorse del CNR - CNR Bioscience and Bioresources Institute). ABE site Italy also takes advantage of the international cooperation with a solid network of 25 similar ABE sites, which are active in three continents and coordinated by prestigious institutions (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.com/where-we-are)...

Executive directors of the training course: Ilaria Caldarelli and Silvia Bellocchio. ABE Italy ambassadors and members of the ABE Italy training team.

Sofia platform code: 76561 
Applications can be submitted from the 20th of September to the 31st of October.

The training course is aimed at veteran ABE Italy teachers working in the regions where the program is active: Lombardy, Campania, Lazio, Apulia, Basilicata, Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Emilia Romagna, Sicily.

The course will be enacted in blended mode and will last 15 hours in total, divided between the following phases...

A call for applications to the courses of the "Scuola Superiore Meridionale" of Naples for the 2022/23 academic year has been published, with a deadline of the 29th of August.

The Scuola Superiore Meridionale (SSM) is a Higher Education Institution that was established in 2019, which is located at the University of Naples Federico II. As it does not provide full university degrees, the students selected to study at the SSM are also enrolled in a course at the University of Naples Federico II, where they complete their basic training; the SSM instead provides additional teaching (supplementary courses, tutoring activities, laboratory courses and seminars). Students at the SSM are also entitled to free room and board at the School's residences, as well as free tuition and a small annual bursary.

On the 30th of June, 2022, the ABE Italy event "The art of teaching to ignite the passion for Science - Exploring the symphonies of Molecular Biology" will take place in Spoleto (PG), in occasion of the "Festival dei Due Mondi" ("Festival of the Two Worlds").

The event will be attended by local authorities and by Italian and international representatives of Amgen and ABE. The event will start at 3.30pm.

The event poster can be downloaded from this link, and an English version of the event programme of the program is also available.

The Institute for Biosciences and BioResources (IBBR) of the Italian National Research Council, which is a partner of ABE Italy, will take part in the "Fascination of Plants Day". More than 100 free events have been planned for Italian teachers and students in more than 30 towns between the 12th and the 22nd of May, 2022. Find the one that inspires you: https://2022.plantday.it/ !

The International Fascination of Plants Day is celebrated on the 18th of May, and it is advertised all over the world in order to make as many people as possible...

All ABE Teachers are invited to join the ABE Teacher Roundtable series, in which panelists from ABE sites around the world discuss topics of relevance to the ABE community.

On Tuesday, April 12th 2022, Dr. David Upegui from ABE Rhode Island and Tracy Serros from ABE San Francisco will discuss...

ABE days in Italy have been launched! They are organised in collaboration with the Institute for Biosciences and Bioresources (IBBR) of the National Research Council, which is an Italian partner of the Amgen Biotech Experience (ABE) program.

Scientists will meet students in ABE schools, to present and discuss of cutting edge biotechnological research discoveries...

The course is divided in three phases, and answers the necessity, which has emerged in multiple fields, to acquire updated knowledge about the development of biotechnologies and to think about the ethical implications that go hand in hand with such development, in order to create interdisciplinary educational proposals...

The depth scaling strategy of ABE Italy's IBSE (Inquiry-Based Science Education) project has been highlighted in the ABE newsletter (click here to subscribe). This is what the ABE Program Office had to say...
 

ABE BLENDED COURSE - AMGEN BIOTECH EXPERIENCE: level 1 2021-2022

SOFIA platform code 64875

Training program (in Italian)

What is ABE?

ABE site Italy (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.net/it/eng) is an international training program for high school teachers coordinated by the EDC (Education Development Center) of Boston (USA) and supported by the AMGEN Foundation...

We are delighted to share Gilda Nappo's experience with the ABE Italy distance-learning programme.

You can read her report on the ABE website: https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.com/abe-italy-teacher-reflects-inspiring-pandemic-pdi . In it, Nappo recounts her experience in performing the experiments at home, alone but at the same time connected with other ABE teachers and staff.

The LabXchange platform provides teachers and students with an opportunity to explore biotechnology in a "practical" way, even while lockdown and distance learning measures are in place, thanks to many on-line lab experiences and virtual classrooms.

Today, after barely more than a year since the platform was launched, Bob Bradway (CEO and Chairman of Amgen Foundation) celebrated...

ABE students at teacher at the Liceo Scientifico "Giacomo Leopardi" in Recanati (MC, Marche region) have appeared on Italian national television (Rai) during "TG Leonardo", a science-focused news program, where they presented their distance-learning lab experience with LabXchange.

https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.com/about/newsroom/abe-featured-italian-television

During the celebrations for the 30th year of the ABE program, we share this article from 2018 describing the experience of the first year of ABE in Italy.

Anna Pascucci, Director of the ABE site Italy, recounts the process that brought to the establishment of ABE site Italy...

What is ABE?

ABE site Italy (https://www.amgenbiotechexperience.net/it/eng) was born in 2017 thanks to a cooperation agreement between ANISN (the Italian National Association of Natural Sciences Teachers) and the University of Naples Federico II. Since the 2020 - 2023 cycle, the partnership grew with the inclusion of IFOM (FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology), IBBR (Bioscience and Bioresources Institue of the CNR), LSS (Experimental Sciene Laboratory in Foligno) and the Society of Naturalists. ABE site Italy takes advantage of international cooperation with a consolidated network of 20 similar ABE sites that are active in 3 continents in prestigious institutions...

Target:

High school Science teachers from Campania, Lazio, Apulia, Basilicata, Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo, Emilia Romagna, Sicily.

The international training course will be in English. Attendees will come from 18 different countries out of 3 continents. It will include 5 synchronous 90-minute meetings from September 28th to October 2nd. It is primarily intended for teacher who have never taken part to the ABE Italy program or to veteran ABE Italy teachers. The program will include ABE laboratory simulations on LabXchange...

LabXchange is offering a series of 1-hour webinars to introduce the platform and how it can be useful for distance teaching and learning. These workshops will involve:

       • Learning to use LabXchange to create a differentiated, student-centered learning experience...

The ABE site Italy has been recently featured in a few articles:

       •  The experience of Italian schools with COVID-19 and distance learning, as well as their involvement with LabXchange, ...

The ABE online course "Responding to a Mystery Illness" is available on the LabXchange platform!

You can sign up to the course using the class code 537DF0 at https://www.labxchange.org/dashboard/learner/classes (a free account is required).

On Wednesday, June 10th 2020, join us and our colleagues at LabXchange in an international STEM shutdown in support of the Black Lives Matter movement (https://www.shutdownstem.com/).

In the words of Robert Lue, Faculty Director and Principal Investigator at LabXchange: "It now sits with all of us to not let hate and injustice fade into the background of the everyday as is so often the case, but rather hold it close as an impetus to push harder against these forces in our important work together."

The current Italian situation with COVID-19 changes very quickly, and schools have had to move to distance teaching platforms in order to continue their educational mission. In spite of these difficulties, the community of ABE teachers is keeps going on stronger than ever!

We show in this page some of the works about COVID-19 that ABE students have developed, using the resources provided by LabXchange and working individually or as a group.

The international and national community of the ABE program, aware of the importance of the changes that distance teaching and learning imposes now that schools are closed, has created this newsletter with the goal of offering resources and tools to support teachers and students, hoping that it can be of help.

The Amgen Foundation and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University have launched an online science education platform called LabXchange, which allows its users to compile customized "pathways" of content to suit their learning styles and objectives.

During development of the platform, LabXchange worked with a group of ABE teachers in order to provide a collection of pathways inspired by the the ABE curriculum.

The Amgen Foundation and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University have launched the LabXchange platform, which provides its users with personalized instruction, virtual lab experiences and networking with the global scientific community, free of charge.

The platform can be accessed from https://www.labxchange.org/; an account is required, which can be created for free by anyone over the age of 13.

The ABE project is jump-starting a series of intercultural exchanges between Italy and France.

The process was started by the directors of the ABE sites Italy (Anna Pascucci) and France (Alain Bessis), who visited each other's country's ABE site in order to experience and uderstand how the ABE project is implemented in different realities.

According to Alain Bessis, the exchange between students and teachers from different countries is fundamental: "It could open up entirely new views of science".

The ABE program was exposed at Fiera Didacta Italia (Florence, Fortezza da Basso) on October, 10th 2019.

Serena Goracci (Indire researcher), Anna Pascucci (ANISN vice-president and ABE site Italy director) and Valentina Noviello (ABE site Italy staff) presented the activies that ANISN - National Association of Natural Science Teachers is undertaking to introduce the program in Italian schools, through teacher formation events, didactic tools, research materials and equipment.

Registrations are open for the free Amgen Biotech Experience training course by ABE Site Italy, organized by ANISN together with the University of Naples Federico II and the Laboratory for Experimental Sciences of Foligno.

1st level course for new teachers

• Training course in Naples, at the Biology department of the University of Naples, January 7th - 10th 2020, aimed at secondary school science teachers from Campania, Basilicata, Molise, Apulia, Sicily.

Course ID 35999

The art of teaching to ignite the passion for Science

Biotechnology at school with inquiry-based learning

On September 23rd, 2019 the Sala Azzurra of the Monte S. Angelo complex of the University of Naples Federico II hosted the ABE Convention "The art of teaching to ignite the passion for Science - Biotechnology at school with inquiry-based learning".

The event featured personalities from the University of Naples Federico II, the AMGEN Foundation and the ABE project, together with international guests from the United States, France and Israel.

Here is the press review of the ABE event at the Open Day of Istituto Superiore Pitagora in Pozzuoli (for further information: http://abe.anisn.it/en/whatis/news/#5)!

An Open Day to present the experience of students and teachers involved in the ABE programme took place on May 29th, 2019, in Pozzuoli (NA), at the Istituto Superiore Statale Pitagora.

Speakers included Maria Luce Vegna, Medical Director of Amgen Italy, who talked about the mission of the Amgen Foundation, and Anna Pascucci, President of ANISN and Director of the ABE site Italy, who stressed the enthusiasm shown by students and teachers involved in the programme.

For more information about the event, about ABE site Italy and the Amgen Foundation (in Italian): https://www.amgen.it/it-it/sala-stampa/featured-news/2019/05/scienziati-si-diventa/

From the 11th to the 14th of February, 2019 the Amgen Biotech Experience on-site training course has taken place at the ABE satellite site in Foligno (PG). It was aimed at Secondary School teachers, and it was organized by the ABE site Italy of the National Association of Natural Sciences Teachers - ANISN and the Department of Biology of the University of Naples "Federico II", in partnership with the ABE site Massachusets at Harvard Universiy.

From the 14th to the 17th of January, 2019 the Amgen Biotech Experience training course will take place in Naples. It is aimed at Secondary School teachers, and it is organized by the ABE site Italy of the National Association of Natural Sciences Teachers - ANISN and the Department of Biology of the University of Naples "Federico II", in partnership with the ABE site Massachusets at Harvard Universiy.

The course aims to

The launch event for the ABE site Italy satellite centre in Foligno will take place on November 9th, 2018, at 15:00.

For this occasion, the "Laboratorio di Scienze Sperimentali" in Foligno will host Pierluigi Mingarelli (director of the Laboratorio), Silvano Tagliagambe (science philosopher), Anna Pascucci (ABE site Italy director and ANISN president) and Luigina Renzi (director of the ABE site Italy satellite centre in Foligno and ANISN Umbria president)

Registrations for the Amgen Biotech Experience training course organised by the ABE Site Italy are open.

The first training course, which will be held in Naples, Department of Biology, University of Naples, from the 14th to the 18th of January 2019, is targeted at secondary school Science teachers from Campania, Basilicata, Molise and Apulia, and its ID on the SOFIA platform is 20366.

The second training course will be held in Foligno, Experimental Sciences Laboratory, from the 11th to the 14th of February 2019, and is targeted at secondary school Science teachers from Umbria, Abruzzo, Marche and Lazio; its ID on the SOFIA platform is 20445.

Naples, 6 november 2017 – To let students and teachers experience real science, bringing in high school classrooms "practical" science education through the creation of biotech laboratories, which in the last decades have been instrumental for advancements in medical sciences and therapeutic innovation for many serious illnesses: this is the aim of Amgen Biotech experience - ABE by Amgen Foundation, which has been bringing forward this initiative for more than 30 years in the United States and has now extended the program also to China, Canada, Australia, Singapore and some European countries, including Italy. ABE is an internation program for experimental education about Biotechnologies and methodological innovation based on IBSE (Inquiry Based Science Education), and it's targeted for high school students and science teachers