Media advisory issued September 2, 2003, effective immediately.

Noble Foundation Joins the Oklahoma Science Project

Oklahoma City and Ardmore, OK, September 2, 2003 — The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) announced today the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation will participate in the Oklahoma Science Project, a science education program for high school teachers.

"We couldn't be happier about welcoming the Noble Foundation to the Oklahoma Science Project," said OMRF scientist Philip Silverman, Ph.D., who heads the Project. "Working together, we hope that the Noble Foundation and OMRF can demonstrate how private scientific research institutions can make a major contribution to improving pre-college science education."

The Project offers public high school science teachers from across Oklahoma the chance to spend summers working in OMRF's laboratories side-by-side with researchers and technicians. Starting next summer, teachers that have completed a summer at OMRF will have the opportunity to continue their education experience in the Noble Foundation's labs working with Noble researchers and technicians.

"This collaboration allows the Noble Foundation to expand its educational outreach activities to include high school teachers and to participate in OMRF's long tradition of making a difference in Oklahoma education," said Steve Rhines, Director of Legal Affairs and administrator of the Project for the Noble Foundation. "We will complement OMRF's summer program. Using a plant science based curriculum, we want to give teachers new tools and knowledge that they can take back to their classrooms and pass on to our state's high school students"

Since 1993, the Oklahoma Science Project has provided the state's public high school science teachers with novel instructional tools that they can use to introduce their students to the nature of science and scientific discovery. Through hands-on research experiences as well as telecommunications and computer networks, the Project encourages teachers to transform their perceptions of science, science education and their place in the larger scientific community. For more information about the Project, go online to www.okscienceproject.org or call (405) 271-7660.

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The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage improvement, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs. To learn more, visit the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org.

OMRF (www.omrf.org) is a nonprofit biomedical research institute dedicated to understanding and curing human disease. Its scientists focus on such critical research areas as Alzheimer's disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease. OMRF is home to Oklahoma’s only Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and only member of the National Academy of Sciences in the area of biomedical research.

More news releases available at www.noble.org/Press_Release