Teacher’s students making mark at NC in field of biotechnology

High school science teacher Randy James worked in a biochemistry lab one summer, an effort to hone his science skills. That’s when he had his “eureka” moment.

To really learn science, his high school students needed to work as scientists, he thought. Teaching canned laboratory experiments from a book just wouldn’t do anymore, he realized. Students need to confront real-world problems that didn’t have clear-cut solutions.

Some 27 years after he started teaching science in his hometown of Spokane, James’ vision is coming true.

For the past six years, he’s pushed North Central High School’s science department to get ninth- through 12th-grade students doing original research.

His top junior and senior students are using the latest tools in DNA fingerprinting and are helping to build a database of DNA signatures of local fish populations.

Next year, some of North Central’s freshman science students will be handed white lab coats and trained in laboratory fundamentals to prep them for more rigorous research work. Sophomores will continue their research projects on a Spokane Valley nature preserve. Students made numerous field trips with teacher Brent Osborn to collect samples, from soil to sounds and various grasses.

At the first-ever science symposium for North Central students held Monday, James grilled his pupils about the subcloning of a green fluorescent protein gene in a cytoplasmic element called pUC19, which is often used in recombinant DNA processes.

Then he questioned another student about her research that explored the myostatin genotyping of a Piedmontese cattle herd using a Polymerase Chain Reaction, a process used in DNA fingerprinting that generates millions of copies to better detect minute quantities of cells. In other words, the student is trying to find a single DNA code – one in 3 billion – that is desirable because an animal with that code will pass on all of its characteristics 100 percent of the time.

James arrives at school at 6 a.m. and often comes in weekends to set up projects and research lessons for students. His hard work received some attention this year when he was one of two state teachers selected to receive a $10,000 award from Amgen, Washington’s largest biotech company. Last fall he received the 2004 National Association of Biological Teachers Biotechnology Teaching Award. In 1999, James received the Outstanding Biology Teacher Award for Washington state.

Maybe most meaningful was an invitation to be an honorary marshal in the Lilac Parade this Saturday. He’ll ride in a car behind North Central’s marching band.

“Science is driven by individuals with vision and motivation,” said Don Lightfoot, Eastern Washington University biochemistry professor and director of biotech company GenPrime. “His students are as good as our university students.”

Lightfoot worked with James in a university lab and used James’ students as aides.

“He’s sending a lot of kids toward science careers,” said Steve Gering, North Central’s principal. As a former biology teacher himself, he understands that it’s easier to teach 30 students the same experiment rather than 15 separate studies occurring simultaneously. Original research also requires equipment and money, which James has acquired through the years.

Researchers and bio-tech companies know him as the hot-shot science teacher who’s always willing to pick up a pallet of hot plates, gel boxes, refrigerators and thermocyclers. One of his greatest additions includes a $70,000 robotic DNA sequencer that runs on $12,000 software, a rarity in high schools. James said it took a summer of reading manuals and 18 months before he could train himself well enough to fully use the machine with his students.

His students maintain a graded lab book that includes all protocols, investigations and data analyses, along with a growing folder of primary journal articles.

After giving a brief presentation at the symposium this week about the genotyping of the Piedmontese cattle herd through ear-hair analysis, Olivia Moore was offered a summer job as a lab aide by one of Washington State University Spokane’s top researchers, Lisa Shaffer. Shaffer was the keynote speaker at the science symposium.

“I was like, ‘That would be awesome,’ ” Moore said. “I figured I wouldn’t be able to work in a lab until after college.”

Her summer plans were to work driving cars for a local car dealership.

Shaffer told the students in her speech Monday that she hoped all of them would one day realize the great opportunities they were receiving. Shaffer said she went to high school in Kennewick and didn’t know what a Ph.D. was, exactly, and it wasn’t until much later in college that she learned how to run a DNA sequencer.

“The opportunities we have in that classroom are unequaled anywhere else,” Moore said.

James is a popular teacher whose enthusiastic reputation is known throughout the school, she added. His classroom is filled with oddities such as a stuffed turtle, a bald eagle and a trumpeter swan. James is also known for getting so excited that he’ll start writing on just about any surface to diagram his ideas.

“I just can’t pass up a teachable moment,” James said.

James grew up on the South Hill within walking distance of more than a dozen relatives. His life changed when his parents gave him a microscope. But what may have been his greatest turning point was his freshman year at Ferris High School under the mentorship of a running coach in the late ‘60s.

At that time, no freshman had ever made the 1,000-mile club, a select group that requires students to run 1,000 miles during the school year to join. James said he’d give it a shot.

It was one of those classic Spokane winters with a foot of snow on the ground, topped with an inch of ice formed by a cold drizzle. It was after cross-country practice, and everyone had showered when the coach asked the team, “Who wants to go for a run?”

Everyone looked at their shoes, including James. But he said yes. He ran behind the coach until about halfway through the run, when his mentor reached back, grabbed James by the arm and propelled him into the lead position. The coach said, “That’s where champions run.”

James never forgot. He started to believe he had the makings of a champion and went on to win four state distance-running championships. He became an all-American runner at the University of Oregon with the legendary Steve Prefontaine.

James no longer has the runner’s build, and all those running trophies are stored in a basement box, he said. His drive still pushes his students.

Moore said recently James gave his class a pep talk as they neared the home stretch of their high school careers.

“You can’t give up. You can’t succumb to ‘senioritis.’ Life is not going to hand you everything. You have to fight for it,” Moore said, recalling his talk. “It’s getting to the end of the year. You can’t stop. Kick it up a notch. Keep going.”

Now James is wondering how he can get his lab space remodeled and enlarged.