Students from Stuyvesant High School and Midwood High School Win Science Fair, Off to International Competition in May

Aaron Wong and Ting Luo, seniors at Stuyvesant High School, captured the first and second place awards, respectively, at the New York City regional competition of the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) held Friday and Saturday, March 15 and 16, at The Rockefeller University. Saif Ahmed and Zhen Huang, juniors at Midwood High School, garnered the first place team project. Ten other students received top honors as well.

All four students will compete in the 47^th ISEF, May 5 to 11 in Tucson, Ariz., at which nearly 1,100 students from the United States and 41 other countries will participate. The ISEF is the only international science competition for students in grades 9 to 12. The four students also received paid summer internships at Rockefeller, a graduate institution specializing in biomedical research.

More than 60 juniors and seniors from 16 high schools in the New York City metropolitan area participated in the regional fair. The student projects comprised research in 23 different categories, including behavioral and social sciences, cell biology, chemistry, computer science, environmental science, genetics, mathematics, microbiology and physics. Judges presented third and fourth place awards for individual and team projects as well as best individual junior project and certificates in each category for best, high honors and honors. The winning team and students receiving the first through fourth place individual awards also receive paid Rockefeller summer internships. (A complete listing of winners is available.)

Wong’s project examined “The Anterior Development of the Drosophila Embryo in Absence of the Morphogen Hunchback.” Luo won for her project, “Identification and Characterization of a Novel Human General Transcription Factor: Implications in Gene Expression Regulation, Transcription-Translation Linkage, Host Cell-Virus Communication and Programmed Cell Death.” Ahmed and Huang’s team project focused on “To What Extent Does Coliphage T4 IIRA Mediate the Partial Reversal of UV Damage In E. coliK12?”

Tieing for best junior project were Rose Payyapilli, a junior at Midwood High School, for her project, “Novel Regulation of Platelet Activation,” and Jonathan I. Silverberg, also a junior at Midwood High School, for his project, “Localization and Evolutionary Conservation of the SHP1 Regulatory Gene ofSaccharomyces cerevisiae.”

Tieing for second place team project were Tiana Grimes and Melissa Villanueva, seniors at Midwood High School and LaGuardia High School respectively, for their work, “Identifying the Genes Responsible For the Inactivity of the Pneumococcal Autolytic Enzyme in the Presence of the Antibiotic Penicillin,” and Sunny Chan and Vincent Eng, juniors at Midwood High School, for their work, “The Usage of SDS and Pressure in the Degradation of Cellulose in Improving the Production of Ethanol Fermentation.”

Adrian Majid, a senior at Bronx High School of Science, received the third place individual award for his project, “Mapping the Rheumatoid Factor Binding Site Using Heavy and Light Chain Recombination and Site Directed Mutagenesis: Implications for Understanding Rheumatoid Arthritis.”

Three students tied for fourth place individual project. They are Cecilia Curran, a senior at Convent of the Sacred Heart, for her project, “Identification of Genes That Influence Adherence of S. pneumonia to GalNAc[[beta]]1-4Gal Resting Cell Receptors,” Jenice Forde, a senior at Midwood High School, for her project, “Effects of Estrogen Gene Disruption on Sexual Behavior and Motor Neuron of Male Mice,” and Victor Zaydfudim, a senior at Bronx High School of Science, for his project, “Combat in the Soil: Protective Adaptations of Social Amoebae.”

Rockefeller and the NYNEX Foundation supported the regional fair, which had 60 judges, including 30 university faculty and 30 high school science teachers. The nonprofit Science Service Inc. sponsors ISEF, with support from the Andrus Foundation-American Association of Retired Persons, Intel Foundation, Merck Research Institute and the NYNEX Foundation. In addition to ISEF, Science Service, founded in 1921, publishes Science News and administers the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.