Young N.C. scientists launch onto international stage
March 17, 2009
DeLene Beeland
Fueled by insatiable curiosities and months of hard work, four North Carolina high school students will jet off to China on March 17 where they will compete in an international science fair and get a hard-earned taste of what intellectual endeavors can reap.
The students won top honors January 18 at the North Carolina International Science Challenge, a statewide high school science competition. Their coveted prize is an all expenses-paid seven-day trip to Beijing, where they will enter their projects into the Beijing Youth Science Creation Competition, interact with young scientists from other countries, and partake in sight-seeing stops including a visit to the Great Wall of China. The N.C. Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center and the Grassroots Science Museums Collaborative co-sponsored the competition.
Nancy Sung, a senior program officer with the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, judged the most recent NCISC, and helped whittle down the list of contenders. “I was very impressed,” Dr. Sung said of the students’ work. “The level of depth was amazing to see, at this age. They’d clearly made a huge commitment not only in terms of their time, but in terms of the mental space they’d given their projects.”
Dr. Sung said the winners were selected based upon whether they understood the science and their articulation of their understanding and the project. Judges also looked for students harboring natural curiosity, she said.
A microbiologist by training, Dr. Sung traveled in 2006 with the first group of N.C. students and North Carolina science and policy leaders who attended the BYSCC. She recalled that the Chinese students had competitive projects. “They would stop me, and ask in beautiful English, ‘Can I tell you about my science project?’ And then they would proceed to explain it beautifully in a foreign language.”
Dr. Sung said the young scientists were “like rock stars” to the Chinese. “The kind of attention we give to our athletes here, that was how the Chinese treated our students.”
The NCISC is organized by a consortium of 25 science museums known as the Grassroots Science Museums Collaborative. This year, GSMC executive director Fran Nolan will lead the students plus a few scientists and science leaders from N.C. to Beijing for the fourth time. The Beijing Association for Science and Technology organizes the BYSCC and invites about 10 foreign countries to compete, as a way to honor the students, Dr. Nolan said.
“The key word in this that I point out to people is ‘creation,’” Dr. Nolan said. “Because innovation is all about scientific creation. That used to be just an American domain, but the Chinese are trying to improve on this. And this competition is one way to facilitate an exchange of international ideas.” Middle and high school students display projects while primary students display artwork about their “scientific fantasies.”
The four N.C. students, the sole U.S. representatives, and their projects are described below:
Eileen Kao Jang
Project: Natural organics control aggregation of mercury sulfide nanoparticles in freshwater systems
Ms. Jang, a senior at the N.C. School of Science and Math in Durham, was paired with mentor Dr. Heileen Hsu-Kim in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University where she probed the fate and transportation of mercury nanoparticles in natural freshwater systems. “She was an amazing mentor,” Ms. Jang said of Dr. Hsu-Kim. “I feel like I couldn’t have gotten so far into my project if she hadn’t gotten me so interested in the subject.”
Ms. Jang, whose hometown is Cary, said the processes her project investigated could influence how much mercury is bioavailable in an environment, leaving it open to be converted into methylmercury which can harm humans who eat fish in which it has accumulated. Methylmercury is a known neurotoxin. Ms. Jang synthesized mercury nanoparticles, through a controlled precipitation process, then characterized them using spectroscopy and microscopy methods and tested for aggregation rates.
“My conclusions were that, one, I was able to successfully synthesize mercury sulfide nanoparticles under 100 nanometers, and two, I was able to successfully characterize them as mercury sulfide nanoparticles,” Ms. Jang said. “And third, I was able to see that salinity does have an effect on aggregation rates up to a certain point; and I was able to say that the sulfhydryl functional group in cysteine [an amino acid] does play a role in controlling aggregation.”
Overall, this has led to a better understanding of mercury nanoparticle processes in freshwater systems, Ms. Jang said.
“This project was one step in a really long chain of understanding mercury sulfide nanoparticles and how they behave,” Ms. Jang said. “Hopefully, by studying the aggregation rates, we’ll eventually be able to say how quickly these processes affect methylation rates.” Ms. Jang worked on her project from April to November of 2008.
“There is no doubt that one of the biggest factors in my high school career has been being able to do research,” said Ms. Jang, who is considering majoring in chemistry, environmental sciences or biology when she attends college. She said she is excited to meet her international peers in Beijing. “This is basically an unparalleled opportunity to interact with people that have such different backgrounds, but share an interest in what I’m interested in. In general, it’s hard to find high schoolers who are really passionate about research, and care about it like I do. So this is a great opportunity to meet people and exchange ideas, which I’ve found is really crucial to understanding why my research is important.”
Ms. Jang is also captain of her school’s Science Olympiad Team, president of the Health Occupations Students of America organization at her school, is a National Merit Finalist, and finds an outlet playing softball.
Shara Weaver
Project: The effect of activation in the brain’s reward pathway on dopamine concentrations and motivated behavior.
Ms. Weaver is a senior at Josephine Dobbs Clement Early College High School in Durham. Her project has spanned two years of work in Dr. Mark Wightman’s University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill chemistry laboratory and investigated how dopamine concentrations in rat brains are affected by stimulation frequencies and low dosages of cocaine. Weaver said she was trying to determine if dopamine concentrations were related to the firing frequencies of dopamine neurons.
“This project is about trying to understand more about addiction,” Ms. Weaver said.
Ms. Weaver learned to perform a specific type of surgery to place a carbon-fiber microelectrode and a stimulation electrode in the brains of two rats. Then she analyzed how stimulation at low and high frequencies impacted their dopamine production (measured by the carbon-fiber electrode). In order to stimulate the correct region, the electrodes had to be placed correctly to within a millimeter. She also elicited stimulation by administering low dosages of cocaine (1 mg/1 kg).
“We were trying to see, based on how we administered the stimulation frequencies, how that affected dopamine concentration in the brain,” Ms. Weaver said. “Because it is believed, based on other research, that the higher frequencies increase dopamine concentrations.”
Ms. Weaver said she worked with three different regions of the rats’ brains: the nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area and dorsal hypothalamus. She also began training the rats to press levers which would stimulate their brains, in an effort to understand the role that behavior plays in addiction. She said her findings included confirming her hypothesis that higher frequencies of stimulation altered dopamine concentration by increasing it.
“I learned more about addiction,” Ms. Weaver said. “And I understand more about why it’s so hard for a recovering addict to overcome relapsing back into using a drug, because addiction is something that happens in the brain when the dopamine cycle is altered.”
Ms. Weaver credits her strong interest in medicine to her mother. “My mom is a registered nurse, and I was always exposed to medicine,” Ms. Weaver said. “I want to be a surgeon, maybe trauma or even working in an ER.” Weaver said she was happy when she learned she’d go to Beijing. “I was shocked and really happy. I applied last year and didn’t get it, so I’m really happy to have tried for it again, because I got it this year.”
When Ms. Weaver is not in the lab or in class, she runs track, swims, and volunteers at African Advocates Against AIDS in Raleigh.
Brandon Young
Project: Finding a structural approach to determine PAC-1 activation mechanism for (pro)caspase -3.
Mr. Young is a senior at William G. Enloe High School in Raleigh. He worked with Dr. Clay Clark in the department of molecular and structural biochemistry at N.C. State University to investigate a specific protein involved in “programmed cell death” (apoptosis) and the possibility of targeting this protein for treating tumors.
“When apoptosis does not occur, then mytosis can exponentially grow cells, resulting in cancerous tumors,” Mr. Young said. “Specifically over the past two years, I’ve been working with a molecule called PAC-1.” This molecule is known to activate (pro)caspase-3, a protein involved in regulating apoptosis, Mr. Young said. His project involved statistical modeling with the DOCK computer program to test whether PAC-1 could fit structurally within the (pro)caspase-3 protein. He also performed activation tests on PAC-1 to see if it could be activated enough for use in cancer treatments on humans.
“My conclusions were that PAC-1 would be able to structurally fit within the body on our computer examples, however, we have not tested some of the negative effects,” Mr. Young said.
He credits Dr. Clark’s “hands-on” mentoring approach with keeping him interested in the project. “We pretty much sat side-by-side on his laptop and made sure I understood what was going on. To a certain extent, he allowed me a lot of freedom with some of the experience. But of course, after I had proven to him that I was capable of handling it.”
Mr. Young said his cousin, who is beginning a pediatric surgery residency, also strongly influenced him. “Some of the stories he’s told me have really turned me on to surgery in general. Eventually, I want to go into medicine and do cardiovascular surgery,” said Mr. Young, who is a repeat NCISC winner. “Having the opportunity to go again is incredible. And to be able to compare science projects with kids from across the world is, lucky for me, going to be a twice-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said.
Mr. Young is also in the National Honors Society, the Enloe Marshall Program, plays varsity football and competes in varsity track, and mentors second graders through a Peer Discovery class.
Darren Zhu
Project: Synthesis and characterization of self-assembled monolayers of isocyanides on ferromagnetic thin films
Mr. Zhu is a senior at the N.C. School of Science and Math and his hometown is Winston-Salem. He worked in the laboratory of Dr. Wei You in the department of chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill to investigate the development of molecular electronics.
Mr. Zhu said current molecular electronics operate at the micro-scale, and that the next step is for them to downsize to the nanoscale which involves different molecules to produce wires in an electronic device.
“Specifically, the project I work with is trying to develop spintronic devices, which is kind of an innovative area of electronics where the spin of electrons rather than the charge of electrons is exploited,” Mr. Zhu said. Spintronics applications could include more advanced computing efficiency and data storage.
Starting last July, he said he invested eight to 10 hours per week in performing experiments and testing ferromagnetic metals. “I placed them in to these organic self-assembling monolayer solutions to see why the molecular wires essentially could form, and I analyzed these surfaces,” Mr. Zhu said. He elaborated that nickel and cobalt both developed a dense surface covering of the self-assembling monolayer molecules after he chemically altered the metals’ surface.
“I found a high surface coverage of isocyanindes, which were the self-assembling monolayers that I used,” Mr. Zhu said. “You want to form a nice homogenous layer of these molecules on the surface, so you can attach another ferromagnetic layer on top. And with that, you pretty much have a molecular electronic device.”
Mr. Zhu said he has traveled to Beijing before but that he is excited to return to the “dynamic” city. “Since it’s an international science affair, I am excited to meet all these other high-school peers that are my age and just see what kind of research they were conducting and what kind of areas they were exploring,” Mr. Zhu said. “I mainly want to have a chance to interact, and get a feel for the ground breaking areas of research that are being conducted by kids my age.”
Mr. Zhu credits his parents’ influence for his strong interests in science and mathematics. His father is a radiography researcher at Washington University in St. Louis. “I really feel the environment that I grew up in contributed to the development of my science interests,” he said. “I was exposed to the concepts of science and math at a young age, and it stuck with me.”
When he is not in the lab or in class, Mr. Zhu plays varsity tennis and is an accomplished pianist.
DeLene Beeland is a freelance science writer based in central North Carolina. She harbors a keen interest for the life and earth sciences, and in fostering public understanding of science.
