The Summer Science Program in Biochemistry at Purdue University is a residential enrichment program featuring college-level research in biochemistry for high school students. This program is offered jointly by Purdue University and the Summer Science Program (SSP). 2018 marked the first full cohort of 36 participants to experience the SSP in Biochemistry — a new addition to SSPs original long-running program in Astrophysics. There were two faculty professors (one each from Purdue and Indiana University), four teaching assistant/residential mentors who lived with and facilitated research by the participants, a lab assistant, and a program site director who handled nonacademic residential and administrative issues. Like the SSP in Astrophysics, the SSP in Biochemistry provides an authentic research experience, which has previously been demonstrated to engender identification as a scientist, which promotes retention in STEM majors and substantially clarifies participants career plans (HATHAWAY et al. 2002; HUNTER et al. 2007; LOPATTO 2007; RUSSELL et al. 2007). Over the course of 39 days, the rising high school seniors undertake a combination of classroom and lab work. Guest speakers and field trips emphasize the direct relevance of this experience to STEM careers. The 2018 participants took tours of Argonne National Lab, Dow AgroSciences and Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, where research scientists at these companies explored how the students research relates to ongoing projects and career opportunities at both companies. The SSP in Biochemistry curriculum focuses on the scientific approach to new drug development. Specifically, the students characterize novel members of an enzyme family previously found to be essential for infection of crop species by fungal pathogens (LI et al. 2015). Participants spend about 20 hours per week in the classroom and 40 hours per week cooperatively engaged in the project, working in twelve teams of three, with each team assigned a unique Cdc14 enzyme. The enzymatic properties defined by the participants, including substrate specificity and inhibition by small molecules, are used to computationally design novel, improved inhibitor molecules that could lead to anti-fungal compounds with agricultural and societal benefit. Participants engage in a sequence of increasingly complex scientific inquiries and thereby progress from newcomers to more experienced science practitioners. This progression, scaffolded by old-timers, is the essence of legitimate peripheral participation as defined by Lave and Wenger (1999). By the end of the program, the students have learned how basic research, combining lab experiments and computer tools, can lead to the identification and validation of new drug targets and the development of beneficial drug compounds. They are thereby initiated into the full sociocultural practice of science.