CHIMACUM— The stereotypical after-school project find kids presenting a play or building a bench.
But a pair of Chimacum High School students are pushing the scientific envelope with their extracurricular activity, and they have the eye of lab scientists in Sequim in the process.
Griffin Hoins, 17, a senior, and Daryl Settlemire, 16, a junior, have spent a few hours a week for the past two months creating synthetic DNA as part of an internship program offered by McLuen Design, a scientific lab that overlooks Discovery Bay.
The students are helping with a project connected to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Sequim, where they take sequences supplied by the lab and use the DNA synthesizer to build a model that will be used in research.
The DNA is encoded on tiny modules known as frits and is sent to the lab for advanced testing.
For a high school project, the boys’ effort is unusually close to the meaning of life.
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms.
Lab owner Gary McLuen, who has offered internships to local kids since moving to his current location in 2000, contacted Chimacum High School with a proposal: to provide two students with the opportunity to learn about DNA synthesis.
The kids were asked to write essays about why they wanted to participate, and the teacher chose Hoins and Settlemire for the project.
“I wrote about how I could use this in the future, and in college and how I might use it later in life as a career,” Settlemire said.
“When we got this, the other kids were really jealous,” Hoins said.
While the two will need to get graduate degrees before working in the field, the project gives them a tremendous head start, McLuen said.
DNA analysis can be used in a variety of fields, including disease prevention, diagnosis and law enforcement.
Settlemire said he would like to work with the analysis and prevention of viruses, while Hoins said he was most interested in marine biology but may change his mind.
This shift came after the two interviewed George Bonyeho, a researcher at the PNNL facility in Sequim.
“He said that everyone wants to do marine biology because the animals are so cute, but there’s not much more that you can do with it,” Hoins said.
“Microbiology is a field that’s just exploding, so I might go into that, but I really like marine biology, I’ve grown up around the water, and all my life I’ve been wandering around in the tide pools.”
On Thursday, the two rehearsed the presentation they will give to their biology class and, according to McLuen, worked out some of the nervousness.
Both grew up in Chimacum and feel that the small community has helped them become more rounded.
The accepted stereotype is that students are either academically or physically inclined, but these kids do both: Settlemire is an award-winning football player, while Hoins runs cross-country.
“When I was in third grade, they asked me if I wanted to skip to fifth, but I said no because I wouldn’t be able to play sports,” Settlemire said.
“There are people who are jocks and others that are brains, but we really aren’t all that different.
“If you choose to push yourself academically and physically, you can do both. It’s all up to you.”
“In a small community, you can do anything you want,” Hoins said.
“You can join any club, play any sport and have the opportunity to see a wide range of life.”
Both expect to spend some time in the big city but are happy in Chimacum right now.
“In a city, you have more resources, but here you can be a big fish in a little pond,” Settlemire said.
“Over there, it’s like ‘big lake, little fish.’”
Both have gotten a lot of support from the school and pride from their parents.
“My mom was really excited about this. She thought it was awesome,” Hoins said.
“When I told my mom about it, she said: ‘That’s OK. Just be home for dinner.’”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
