The Amgen Foundation, the main philanthropic arm of Amgen, donated (around $300 million) to local, regional, and international nonprofit organisations that impact society in inspiring and innovative ways.

Any teacher who has carried out the ABE training with us can loan kit from us and run the labs in their classroom.

The labs were created to align with the new Leaving Certificate Biology Curriculum. However, Chemistry teachers also loan the kits and many teachers do the labs with their Transition Year students. We have also had teachers do Lab 1 & 2 with their First Year students.

No, we are expanding to Leaving Certificate Applied, Youthreach, and Special Schools. If you would like to help us pilot these, or have any other ideas as to how we can expand, please get in touch.

Yes, we have PowerPoints for Labs 1 & 2 in Irish.

Yes. Resources can be found here. 

Training workshops take place in each of our distribution centres: University College Dublin, Drumcondra Education Centre, Laois Education Centre, and Monaghan Education Centre. 

All information on upcoming teacher workshops can be found here. Depending on the time of year, you can either register to take part in a workshop, or register your interest in taking part in a workshop the following year. 

For Labs 1-4 travel is covered by Oide, an expense form will be sent to you after the workshop. 

Unfortunately this is not something we can cover at this time.

Yes, lunch is provided at all our workshops (apart from those taking place online).

We only allow teachers who have attended training led by ABE Staff to loan and use our kits. This is to ensure that the equipment is used in the correct manner, and to ensure that students get the best experience possible.

If a colleague of yours would like to use the ABE kit, please encourage them to sign up to our training.

If you have been trained in ABE Ireland labs, you may book your kits through our kit booking form. This opens twice a year and usually books out very quickly.

Details of when the kit booking form will be opened is sent to all trained teachers via email.

Yes, depending on the availability of the kits you can book kit as many times as you like throughout the year.

Yes, multiple teachers can use the same kit at the same time if they are in the same school, just let the ABE staff know when filling out the kit booking form for data collection purposes. 

You can collect the kits from any of our distribution centres which include University College Dublin, Drumcondra Education Centre, Laois Education Centre, and Monaghan Education Centre. 

Yes, you must return your kit to wherever you collected it from.

Yes, you can send your colleague or friend to pick up and return the kit from any of our distribution centres. Please let us know in advance if you plan on doing this.

No, unfortunately the kits get too damaged when couriered so we do not offer this option.

You can have the kit for 2 weeks if loaning Labs 1+2. You can have 3 weeks if loaning Labs 1-4. If longer is required, please request this in the kit booking form.

We do not encourage this as often the kit is booked back to back by teachers, meaning a late return will impact the next teacher who is loaning it out. If you need to rearrange a collection or return date/time, please contact us at abe-ireland@ucd.ie as soon as possible.

Only the practice gels for Lab 1 (micropipetting) can be reused - the wells can be rinsed with water to remove the dye and used again if wanted.

Gels that have been used for DNA gel electrophoresis (Lab 2, 3, 4 and 5) cannot be reused. After usage, they need to be placed in the waste bags provided and returned back to ABE for a disposal.

There are few things you can do to improve the quality of the DNA bands: 1) Make sure your blue light is switched to the higher intensity (press the button with a bigger bulb). 2) Place your gel electrophoresis equipment in a shaded area of the classroom or switch off the light in the room. 3) Use a camera to take a photo of the gel. They may be more visible on your camera screen. 4) If you have used the grey insert in the gel electrophoresis tank (the piece of plastic that sits under the gel in the electrophoresis tank) when loading samples, replace it with the black insert. 5) For your next class, increase the amount of sample DNA. We advise loading 10 μl, however 15 μl might improve the visibility of bands.