As part of the yearly event Researchers Night (ForskarFredag), SciLifeLab opened its doors for 250 high school students on September 26. “It was a super interesting day, I did not in any way expect that”, says one of the visiting students Nathalie Höri.

The high school students arrived to the Stockholm node of SciLifeLab in busses from Debaser Medis where most activities at Researchers Night take place. During the bus ride from Medborgarplatsen the visitors got a guided tour through the capital with focus on medical history.

“It is the first time SciLifeLab takes part in this event and we decided to invite the students here to give them the opportunity to both listen to researchers and see the environment that a researcher works in”, says Mikaela Friedman, Head of Scientific Communications and External Relations in Stockholm.

The concept turned out to be very popular. “The places were filled in just a few days after we released the program and students from nine different schools in the Stockholm area visited us”, says Mikaela Friedman.

Tour of the labs best of the day

The program at SciLifeLab included talks by researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Uppsala University who are active at the center. For example, the students learned about how algae can be employed to produce fuel in the future and how new personalized cancer treatments could be created. The visit also included tours of some of the laboratories.

“It was a super interesting day, I did not in any way expect that”, says Nathalie Höri, year 3 at the science program at Täby Enskilda gymnasium. “I thought it would just be a boring lecture, not as interesting as this”.

“It is really hard to understand what you do as a researcher so it was very good to get a glimpse of what it means”, says Isaac Tiselius, year 2 at the science program at Täby Enskilda gymnasium.

“To see the labs was the best thing”, says Erik Håkansson, year 2 at the science program at Täby Enskilda gymnasium. “I thought it would just be one small laboratory but it was huge, like many labs in row after row.”

Valuable insights in the research career

“To me the most interesting was to hear the researchers talk about how they became researchers and what it is like to work as a researcher, it seems like a interesting job”, says Emmy Lindberg, also in year 2 at the science program at Täby Enskilda gymnasium. “It was also very good to learn more about cancer since it is something that you hear about every day”.

Nathalie Höri agrees:

“I want to become a cancer researcher so the part about cancer research was very valuable for me. I have never got any information about how to become a researcher before so to hear that from a researcher in the field is really important”.

“I have not decided what to study after high school yet but if I should do research I could definitely see myself working here” says Erik Håkansson.

From the left: Nathalie Höri, Erik Håkansson, Isaac Tiselius and Emmy Lindberg.