ABE-LA Student Highlight (Aaliyah G.)
By Mitsy Natareno
Aaliyah Galvez is a true freshman in the Biotechnology program at Los Angeles Mission College, having recently graduated from Arleta High School. Her interest in science began early, but throughout most of her schooling, she had little access to hands-on laboratory experiences. Science classes were largely textbook driven, leaving her curious about how scientific concepts were applied in real lab settings
That changed when she arrived at Arleta High School and enrolled in a biology course where she would meet a teacher that would become a pivotal mentor in her biotechnology journey, Gene Wong. She immediately connected with his teaching style: he emphasized critical thinking and conceptual understanding over memorization, encouraging students to truly make sense of the science in front of them.
Inspired by his approach, she enrolled in his AP Biology course, where she and her classmates engaged deeply with ABE labs. Unlike other AP courses that often felt rushed or overloaded with content, her AP bio class gave students the time and space to truly understand each lab. Through ABE, she gained early exposure to concepts like DNA structure, plasmid recombination and bacterial transformation; discovering how bacteria can be engineered and how DNA can be used as a tool.
She further explored everything that Arleta HS had to offer and enrolled in pilot Biotech 001 taught by Gene Wong in Spring of 2024. Her class created their own project-based posters modeled after those used in the LAMC biotech program. Working in pairs, she developed a CRISPR poster and presented it to classmates before displaying them in the school hallways for other students to learn from. Her pathway toward biotechnology became even clearer during that semester, when she visited the Los Angeles Mission College Biotech program. She observed students in Biotech 002 and was immediately captivated by the equipment and the possibilities of working in a real college lab. That visit inspired her to enroll in the Biotech 002 dual enrollment course over the summer with Dr. Brian Gadd.
The accelerated pace of the course required her to quickly adapt. There was little room for error, so she learned to stay organized, maintain a detailed lab notebook, and document every step of each procedure. Unlike high school, where she often received structured outlines, she now had to take full ownership of her learning. She transitioned from pencil to pen, from a simple college-ruled notebook to a proper lab notebook, and from casual pipetting to developing a steady, precise hand.
These experiences—early ABE labs, AP Biology, scientific poster presentations, and a rigorous dual enrollment course—shaped her into a careful, confident, and capable young scientist. They also solidified her decision to pursue biotechnology at Los Angeles Mission College as opposed to transferring to a university. Her classmates thought she was making a mistake as community college is seen as ‘downgrade’ in comparison to established institutions such as CSUs and UCs given her strong GPA. Aaliyah, saw Mission as an opportunity to stand out. She valued the smaller student-to-professor ration, the individualized attention, and the hands-on learning environment that would be difficult to find in a first-year university lecture hall filled with hundreds of students. She never the need to apply elsewhere; her hear was already set on Mission.
After graduating high school, she enrolled as a freshman in the LAMC Biotechnology program in Fall of 2026. She joined Biotech 003, a project-based learning course, and officially became a student under Dr. Arora. Her classmates were a diverse mix of true freshmen and non-traditional students returning to education. At first, she was intimidated. Many of her peers were older, with more life experiences, and she worried she might not be able to keep up. But Dr. Arora cultivated a classroom culture built on collaboration, communication, and mutual support. Students learned from one another’s strengths, shared their varied backgrounds, and worked together toward common goals.
Aaliyah quickly discovered that she had just as much to contribute as she had to learn. She supported classmates who struggled with certain lab techniques, while gaining insight from those with different academic or professional experiences. Any fear of being dismissed because of her age faded as the group bonded through their shared commitment to biotechnology and their collective work.
The highlight of the course was the group’s research project, Detective ELISA: Cold Case of Cancer. Aaliyah and her teammates presented their work at the LAMC Biotech Symposium and event attended by representatives from Amgen, Univision, and several prominent biotech companies. Standing beside her peers, sharing their findings with industry professions, she felt the full weight of how far she had come; and how far she was ready to go.
