It is not every day local high schoolers have the opportunity to tour a state of the art research facility, learn about biomedical research, visit a serpentarium and have a chance to win cash prizes or scholarships.

More than 400 area high school students will have just such an opportunity during Viper Day Friday, Jan. 22, at Texas A&M University- Kingsville.

Hosted by the Natural Toxins Research Center (NTRC), Viper Day provides high school students a sample of the biomedical research conducted at the NTRC and focuses on the benefits of pursuing a degree in sciences.

Students from the following high schools are scheduled to attend the event: Benavides, Ben-Bolt, Bishop, H.M. King, Moody, San Diego, Pharr- San Juan-Alamo and Tuloso- Midway.

Viper Day participants will learn about NTRC venom research from posters designed by NTRC graduate and undergraduate researchers, and from presentations by NTRC staffers and guests.

Dr. Celia Garcia-Prieto will be the keynote speaker at the event. Garcia-Prieto is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. An A&M-Kingsville alum, Garcia-Prieto was a research assistant at the NTRC from 1998-2001.

Garcia-Prieto has received several awards for her research and service including the American Association for Cancer Research Minority Scholar Awards in Cancer Research and the Minority Access Role Model Award. She is an associate member of the American Association for Cancer Research and the Society for the Advancement of Hispanic/Chicano and Native American Scientists.

Following presentations by university and NTRC officials, students will have the chance to put their biomedical knowledge to use during the Viper Day trivia game, where they can participate in a retooled version of the TV game show, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” One student from each of the participating districts will compete for cash prizes of up to $100.

After the game, students will have the chance to win one of several $500 A&MKingsville book scholarships in a random drawing. Students must plan to enroll at A&MKingsville to receive the scholarships.

After a break for lunch, the students will have the opportunity to tour A&MKingsville’s biology facilities and the NTRC serpentarium, the largest research collection of venomous snakes in the United States.

The NTRC is the only federally funded viper research center in the country and is one of the leading research centers in the world for discovering toxins that can be used in biomedical research. The center develops collaborative research programs and provides global training and resources to identify medically important toxins found in snake venoms. The research complex has 7,000 square feet and stateof the-art instrumentation for biomedical research. The NTRC serpentarium has 4,300 square feet of space with 500 venomous snakes from 24 different species consisting of 32 subspecies and will eventually include all venomous snakes in North America.

For more information on Viper Day, call 361-593-3082.