Growing the Next Generation of Scientists
What is GeneLab for High Schools?
GeneLab for High Schools (GL4HS) is expanding its program in 2025! Starting this year GL4HS is being offered asynchronously and will consist of 12-weeks of on-demand training during the summer. Program dates will be June 2 through August 29, 2025. High School transcripts will be required with all applications – digital (scanned) copies in PDF format only will be accepted with the online form. Applications will close at 11:59pm Pacific on May 15, 2025 or EARLIER if the maximum number of applications has been reached
Access the 2025 GL4HS Application form here
The GeneLab for High Schools program is now open to everyone who satisfies the eligibility requirements. Participation in the program is free to all students who are accepted into the program.
- Only US citizens* and permanent residents (green card) attending US-based high schools
- Rising high school juniors and seniors (entering grade 11 or 12 or college freshmen in Fall 2025)
- Participants must be able to use a computer with stable internet connection in order to successfully complete the course
- Completion of one college-prep high school biology course
- Minimum (unweighted) GPA of 3.0
(*) Citizens of US territories Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Marianas are eligible U.S. citizens.
GL4HS students will learn and/or obtain training in:
- NASA space biology research
- Omics-based research
- Bioinformatics and computational biology methods and techniques to analyze omics data
- Applications of the bioinformatics analyses to NASA Space Biology science
- Formal oral presentation skills
Course Design
Most of the course materials will be available for participants to view on their own schedule (on-demand) with pre-recorded lecture videos. Additionally, office hours will be made available up to three times per week for up to two-hour sessions at a time. Each week open office hours will allow course participants to get a live review of the lesson for that week (same content offered three times) with an instructor to demonstrate lab exercises and to provide opportunities for questions. Participation in open office hours is not required, but highly recommended.
Basic Level
- Open Office Hours consists of five to six (5-6) hours per week of synchronous instruction (optional)
- Recorded lectures and JupyterLab Notebooks are viewed and completed on students’ own time (self-paced)
- If all Notebooks are completed and lectures are viewed, then a digital completion certificate will be awarded at the end of the course.
Capstone Project (Optional)
- Self-formed teams of 4-5 students each will work collaboratively analyzing bioinformatics datasets. Teams must have completed the Basic Level course to be eligible to participate in the Capstone Project. An application form for the Capstone Project will be provided to students who successfully complete the Basic course.
- Student teams will prepare a presentation supporting an hypothesis-based research proposal using original analysis of dataset(s) from the Open Science Data Repository (OSDR)
- Teams will present their proposals (~5-10 mins long) at the end of the summer (approximately in September 2025) during a dedicated full-day competitive symposium
- All student teams that complete the Capstone presentation will receive a Capstone Certificate
- Best 8 student teams will be invited to prepare written proposals for additional run-off competition
Proposal Competition (Optional)
The top three (3) student team proposals will be awarded an all-expense paid trip to travel to the annual American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR) conference to present their proposals.
Note: Teacher internships will no longer be available for the asynchronous program beginning in 2025.
GL4HS Mailing List:
To subscribe to our mailing list and to receive e-mail announcements about the program and application process, please send an email to arc-gl4hs@mail.nasa.gov with “subscribe” in the subject to be added to our mailing list.
