Zoo InternQuest is a career exploration program for high school students. For more information see the Zoo InternQuest Journals. For more photos see the Zoo InternQuest Photo Journal.

We had a very exciting visit to the CRES facility at the Wild Animal Park. CRES stands for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species, and is the research arm of the San Diego Zoo. We headed to the Conservation Education Lab, where a dizzying array of the letters “A, T, C and G” awaited us on the whiteboard. As I glanced around the room, large models of mitochondrion and pictures of a variety of animals met my eyes. Dr. Mark Shrenzel, DVM and PhD, a research veterinary pathologist and the head of the Molecular Diagnostics Lab at CRES, soon greeted us. By his soft-spoken manner and air of intellect, I knew I was in for the learning experience of a lifetime.

As the television screens over the whiteboard displayed various images, Dr. Shrenzel, wasting almost no time, began a presentation on the purpose of people like himself at CRES and the Zoo, as well as a few of the many techniques that they employ. Having been in college for a grueling 15 years, Dr. Shrenzel definitely knew what he was talking about! He introduced us to the technique of PCR, or Polymerase Chain Reaction, which I found to be extremely fascinating. It involves breaking open the DNA molecule, attaching small pieces of DNA called primers, which outline a region of the DNA to be copied, and introducing an enzyme that does the actual copying! At the end of several cycles, more than a billion copies of the DNA region have been created. The results are analyzed in such a way that pathogens can be identified, and aid in the process of determining treatment, finding a way to screen for certain ailments, or even curing disease! We even helped with one of the experiments, using pipettes to transfer the copies of DNA to an electrophoresis chamber for analysis. I felt like a pathologist!

The San Diego Zoo was the first zoo to have a diagnostic lab. In the last nine years, this lab has discovered more than 150 pathogens! If an animal is ill, samples from the animal are sent to the lab. It is the pathologists’ job to determine the type of ailment, the cause, a method of screening and hopefully, a cure. All of their work is noninvasive and not experimental, so their job is sometimes more difficult. They even work on zoonotic diseases, or diseases that can pass from animals to humans and vice versa. These diseases, such as avian flu, salmonella and E. coli are becoming more common due to increased human-animal contact and habitat encroachment, so these research pathologists have to work very hard. They dedicate their lives to the conservation of endangered species, applying molecular biology and general biology concepts in creative and new ways to save species.

Wendy, Conservation Team

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