Bethany Walters, Phillip Smutherman, and Prof. Thom LaBean

As a junior at the North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham, Pat Videau was sick of working at a fish store every summer. Interested in biology, Videau called a colleague of his mother's at Duke University. "I asked him if he had any menial tasks for a high schooler with no lab experience," Videau recalls. Thom LaBean, a professor of Computer Science, Chemistry, and Biomedical Engineering, who has been at Duke University for the last 17 years, readily welcomed Videau into the lab.

LaBean was happy to have a high schooler in his lab because a similar experience made all the difference in his own career. The summer before his senior year in high school, Thom LaBean went to work in the Biotechnology Lab at Dow Chemical, a chemical manufacturer in his hometown of Midland, Michigan. Attracted by research and the laboratory environment, he continued to work half days at the lab during his final year of high school through a work co-op program, then returned again and again each summer while an undergraduate at Michigan State University to work in various Dow Chemical labs.

"As a young student, I got a lot of valuable experience working in labs," says LaBean, who went on to get his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania prior to joining the Duke faculty, where he is a leading researcher in the field of DNA nanotechnology. "My early lab experiences really did me a lot of good, so now I try to pass similar opportunities on to others."

Using some of his grant money, LaBean put Videau to work for the summer doing more than just clean-up: Videau prepared buffers, ran DNA purification gels, and read papers to further his knowledge in the field. After working for LaBean for two consecutive summers, Videau attended Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, where he received a bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in chemistry. Videau is currently pursuing his PhD in microbiology at the University of Hawaii.

Since 2003, LaBean has hosted and mentored numerous high school students from all around North Carolina. "I try to find the kids a project, give them a mentor in the lab, and give them things to read," says LaBean. "By the end of the summer, I want them to have acquired a certain number of skills and to be fairly autonomous."

Some of the students, like Videau, contact LaBean on their own, while others are assigned to the lab through Project SEED, a statewide (and nationwide) science enrichment program funded by the American Chemical Society and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Project SEED places disadvantaged North Carolina high school students under the guidance and supervision of a college-level principal investigator (PI) for a summer of laboratory work. Duke is one of three residential sites for Project SEED, typically hosting 18-20 high school students each year among as many PIs.

"Thom is a great, great, great PI," says Kenneth Cutler, director of Project SEED in North Carolina. "All his students have been very successful." Each year, students are especially eager to work in a cutting-edge nanotechnology lab, says Cutler, so there's a constant demand for the spot.

Chosen from a competitive pool of Project SEED applicants, Andy Smith, a junior at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, joined LaBean's lab in the summer of 2007. He was promptly invited to follow LaBean and additional members of the team in a month-long overseas collaboration in Denmark, funded by a National Science Foundation grant LaBean received in 2006 to bring students from all education levels, from high school to postdocs, to Aarhus University in Denmark to work on joint nanotechnology research projects.

"It was amazing," says Smith, for whom it was his first trip outside of North America. "Thom and everyone in the lab were very supportive, and expected us to be very independent," he adds. The straightforward, hard-working approach LaBean instilled in Smith sticks with him today, as he attends Duke on a full scholarship, where he initially studied neuroscience and is now pursuing public health policy.

The effect of university lab experiences on high school students is tangible and lasting. Almost all of LaBean's pupils have gone onto higher education in science. Bethany Walters, who worked in the lab in 2005 while a student at Durham Academy, graduated recently from Harvard and will attending veterinary school at NC State next year. Phillip Smutherman, who worked there last summer as a Project SEED participant, will be attending Princeton in the fall. The students' drive and enthusiasm for spending their summers in a lab and their resulting success "is a testament to the young scientists budding all around the Triangle," says LaBean.

But the students believe it is a testament to their mentor. "He's a really great thinker and extremely patient. He helps you gain the knowledge you need without spoon feeding you," says Videau. "He's a great guy," says Smith. "I still drop by to see him whenever I can."