The first thing Sandra McEwen noticed when she arrived in New York were all those bare trees scattered all over the landscape.
"What amazed me most was the number of trees with no leaves," said McEwen, a resident of Sydney, Australia. "We don't have so many deciduous trees in Australia."
But McEwen didn't take an 18 hour flight from her homeland just to look at trees. As curator of biotechnology for the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, McEwen is on a three-week wold tour visiting American, Canadian and European museums to exchange ideas and study biotechnological programs.
Biotechnology is the application of biological systems, like bacteria and molds, to create products that are useful to humans. Some existing products include vaccines, medicines like penicillin, and foods, such as yogurt.
Yesterday, McEwen spent the day at North Rockland High School's Biotechnology Center, used by the school's 34 advanced placement biology students. The internationally recognized program has received over $300,000 in corporate donations over the years according to center director Leo Palmero.
In fact, Palmero said the students are working on a project in which they'll insert a foreign piece of DNA into bacteria and change its character as it reproduces. The procedure resembles how human insulin is mass-produced in laboratories.
McEwen was told about North Rockland's fine biotechnology program by officials a the Canadian Institute of Biotechnology in Toronto, Ontario. It is the only school she plans to visit on her trip.
"It's important we communicate what's going on to the general public," she said. "So they as consumers can make informed choices about how they want to use the technology."
As part of her trip, McEwen is also promoting "Innovations in Australian Industry." Few are aware that Australians were the first to use the postage stamps in the 1830s, developed the bionic ear, the "black box" flight recorder used in airplanes, and baby carriages, McEwen said.
On the biotechnological front, an Australian firm recently announced the development of the world's first flu vaccine. After successfully fighting the virus in ferrets, the vaccine is currently being tested on humans.
The scientists down under have also developed chemicals to fight viruses in puppies, young piglets, cattle and chickens.
McEwen plans to travel to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pa., today and will speak at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., next week. Her trip also will move to London and Paris.
She said schools should encourage students to pursue careers in science. "It's very important to make science accessible to students," McEwen said. "But it has t be packaged in such a way that it's interesting and there's and obvious application to everyday life."