How can marine invertebrates help prevent organ transplant rejection?

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Fadi Lakkis, of the University of Pittsburgh in the US, who is examining the mechanisms behind organ transplant rejection. He is using some interesting little invertebrates with their own unique traits to test his theories.
• This resource also contains an interview with Fadi. If you or your students have a question for him, you can submit it online – go to the article using the Futurum link below and scroll to the bottom of the page. Fadi will reply!
• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Fadi’s research, and tasks them to think about what happens when the body’s immune system goes wrong.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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