Research Dr. Amy Firth introduces students Jason Ward of San Jacinto Valley Academy and Kaitlan Navarro of Eastlake High School to the finer points of preparing and separating brain slices for scientific research.

LA JOLLA Minely Araujo, a senior at San Pasqual High School, arranged slices from a mouse brain onto glass slides Saturday that researchers at the renowned Salk Institute for Biological Sciences would study for their work examining brain cancer.

She looked at chimpanzee skin cells that had been transformed back into stem cells. And she marveled at a mouse its skin florescent green from the protein of jelly fish as it scampered inside a cage.

Its so interesting. I like to know what caused things, said Minely, who hopes to study forensic pathology at University of Southern California next year.

Its amazing that we get to see the work that is going on here. Its real research.

More than 200 students got the rare opportunity to tour Salks famed La Jolla research facilities for the 24th annual High School Science Day, co-sponsored by the March of Dimes.

The program is designed to nudge students into a science education or career while giving them the chance to meet with researchers and scientists who are striving to solve real problems.

They toured more than a dozen Salk labs that focused on everything from genetic, stem cell, infectious disease and neurobiology research. Students dissected mouse brains, studied fluorescent markers in worms and isolated single cells using a special micromanipulator.

Through lab tours, interactions with working scientists and participation in lab experiments, these students can picture themselves in the roles of future scientists observing, innovating and discovering, said William Brody, president of the Salk Institute.

Five scientists trained at Salk have won Nobel Prizes, and the labs are home to nine Howard Hughes Medical Investigators and 14 members of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Budding scientists get rare look inside Salk labs