Employee and Community Engagement

At MilliporeSigma, we look for opportunities to use employee and community engagement to spark scientific curiosity and breakthroughs. We know that not all people have access to the advancements in public health that have come through innovations in life science. We also know that tomorrow’s innovations depend on the next generation of scientific explorers. This is why we focus our community engagement in two primary areas: supporting today’s scientists to accelerate access to health through scientific research and inspiring curiosity in the next generation of scientists through science education.

Our community engagement efforts include SPARK—a global, skills-based volunteer program that allows MilliporeSigma employees to leverage their diverse talents, skills and experiences to give back to the communities in which they live and work. We also created the Curiosity Labs™ program to bring the expertise of our employees and access to hands-on, interactive science lessons to classrooms around the world.

Videos from this campaign

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Content from this campaign

Social Impact & Volunteering

MilliporeSigma Employees SPARK Curiosity Around the World
With the successful launch of the SPARK Global Volunteer Program in 2016, MilliporeSigma, the life science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, employees continue to SPARK curiosity around the world, giving back to the communities in which they live and work during 2018 quarterly dedicated SPARK weeks. In addition to SPARK events organized throughout the year, the dedicated SPARK weeks model brings employees together at specific and consistent points in time.

Education

Mobile Science Lab Sparks Curiosity in Hawthorn Students
“It’s exciting to see these experiences being made available to even more students,” says Victoria May, executive director of the ISP. “Too many students get to high school without the confidence to tackle STEM subjects or an awareness of the opportunities waiting for them in STEM fields. That’s why it’s important to make inroads with students when it matters most—in elementary and middle school.”

Research, Reports & Publications

Making Insulin-Producing Cells Unrecognizable
Over the past 20 years, JDRF has driven amazing progress in beta cell transplantation for type 1 diabetes (T1D). As we have seen, in a small subpopulation of people living with T1D, transplantation of beta cells can be, literally, a life-saver. Unfortunately, though, they require long-term immunosuppressive treatments, and most of those beta cells will be gone at two years, rendering these people insulin-dependent again. One avenue to overcome this is to produce the beta cells from stem cells, which have been modified to be immune to a cellular attack. In other words, making insulin-producing beta cells unrecognizable to the immune system. That’s what Elad Sintov, Ph.D., is trying to do, with a JDRF postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

Social Impact & Volunteering

Traveling Science Lab Comes to Kankakee
“We believe in bringing hands-on science to the future generation of scientists,” said Kaely Zeiser, Curiosity Cube coordinator. “We want to bring something to these kids where students can come into the Curiosity Cube and learn from local scientists, learn about their career paths and also get exposed to different technology and different types of science.”

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

2018 Global Visionary Award: MilliporeSigma
For initiating innovative ways to engage employees company-wide in Instrumental Access, MilliporeSigma was honored with a Global Visionary Award at Positively Instrumental 2018 on March 21.

Innovation & Technology

Taking STEM Outside of the Classroom
A 7th Grade science teacher at Marshall Simonds Middle School in Boston, MA, Tammy Scelsi took her students out of the classroom and into a giant box. Actually, it's a 22x10-foot shipping container, dubbed the Curiosity Cube. Life science company, MilliporeSigma developed it and makes it available for free to educators. It's a mobile lab packed with hands-on learning opportunities and staffed by experts.

Education

Curiosity Cube Brings a Mobile Science Lab to Vail Elementary Students
The local branch of Millipore Sigma, an international life science company, reached out to Vail Elementary School and River Springs Charter School to give students a day of hands-on science experiments and learning. The 22-foot by 10-foot, solar-powered laboratory holds advanced technology in virtual reality, augmented reality, high-tech microscopes, 3-D printers and touch screen TVs, creating an interactive experience. Local elementary school students learned about how the brain learns and adapts to the world around them and about the role of cells and their structures.

Education

Girlstart to Host Annual Girls in STEM Conference in Austin, Allowing More Than 500 Girls to Meet and Learn From STEM Professionals, Saturday, March 24
Girlstart, the non-profit organization dedicated to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education for girls, recently announced an expansion of its partnership with MilliporeSigma in 2018. Thanks to MilliporeSigma’s support, Girlstart will bring its innovative after-school programs and summer camps to the Houston, Boston, and St. Louis metro areas—inspiring girls to pursue STEM education and careers in STEM fields.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

Havas PR With MilliporeSigma: Curiosity Cube Sparks Scientific Curiosity Across the United States
Havas PR created a comprehensive media relations strategy focused on generating buzz around each market the Curiosity Cube visits and highlighting its purpose in igniting scientific passion. The Curiosity Cube is a retrofitted shipping container that has been transformed into a mobile science lab. Knowing how important it is for all students to have access to science education, MilliporeSigma brings its Curiosity Labs program and the Curiosity Cube to students in underserved school districts.

Innovation & Technology

Curiosity Cube to Visit Local Schools; Solar-Powered Mobile Science Lab Sparks Interest in STEM
With an expanding workforce that calls for more graduates to fill the pipeline, MilliporeSigma is engaging students in STEM learning through the Curiosity Cube™ mobile science lab. Science industry experts agree that these hands-on experiences are critical to sparking student interest in STEM careers.
The life science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operates as MilliporeSigma in the U.S. and Canada

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