The world cup of science fairs

Written byMegan Scudellari

| 2 min read

Forget baking soda volcanoes and lima beans in paper towels. The fourteen high school students at the recent BIO International Convention in Chicago were more interested in how to differentiate stem cells into pancreatic endoderm, which factors inhibit cell proliferation in glioblastomas, and why an antioxidant has anti-angiogenic effects on epithelial ovarian cancer. "We enjoy it," smiles Raina Jain of Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the first-place winner of this year's linkurl:sanofi-aventis International BioGENEius Challenge,;http://www.biotechinstitute.org/programs/biogeneius_challenge.html which held its final competition at this year's BIO convention at the beginning of May. Get ready MIT and CalTech -- these aren't your average high school students. Jain spent two and a half years working on her research with Matthias Falk, a cell biologist at Lehigh University, after contacting him during her freshman year of high school and asking to him to "give [her] a try" in his lab. For her prize-winning project, Jain -- her mother is a physician and her father a material scientist -- tested how the surface roughness of bioglass, a bioactive material currently used in dental implants, influences the adhesion of precursor osteoblast cells.

The four winners with Allan Jarvis of sanofi-aventis and Paul Hanle, head of the Biotechnology Institute
Image courtesy of The Biotechnology Institute

Jain made the glass based on established procedures, then polished pieces to various degrees of roughness. To test how well precursor bone cells stuck to it, Jain used immunofluorescence staining to detect the presence of vinculin, a cytoskeletal protein involved in adhesion. She found that cells adhere better to smoother surfaces, an insight that could help researchers someday develop bone implants. "I'd like to keep working on this," says Jain. "One discovery leads to tons more questions." As the winner of the national competition, Jain won more than a blue ribbon: She netted a cool $7,500, which she plans to save for college. Jain competed against thirteen other young scientists from the U.S., Canada, and Western Australia at this year's event, which recognizes outstanding student research in biotechnology. Sherwin Wu, a senior at Detroit Country Day School in Novi, Michigan took home second place for his project, "Glucosaminyl (N-acetyl) Transferase 2 (GCNT2) Gene Expression Highly Influences Breast Cancer Metastasis and Promotes an Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT)." Anirudh Saraswathula from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Oak Hill, Virginia won third place for his work to derive pancreatic endoderm from human stem cells in vivo. "Human stem cells are difficult to culture," remarks Saraswathula. "They're quirky." Saraswathula worked on the project with a professor at Georgetown University through a mentorship program at his school. And like any good scientist, he hopes to publish soon.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Blogging biology;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/55349/
[23rd January 2009]*linkurl: Science 'Magnet' High School Programs Growing In Popularity, Variety;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/17177/
[16th September 1996]