Minhye Kim of Brookline High School poses for a picture being taken by her father (right). The Brookline High School student, who conducted diabetes research, qualified as a regional finalist for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.
(Rose Lincoln for The Boston Globe)
Young scientists compete for $100,000 prize
Minhye Kim of Brookline High School poses for a picture being taken by her father (right). The Brookline High School student, who conducted diabetes research, qualified as a regional finalist for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.
(Rose Lincoln for The Boston Globe)
When Minhye Kim was 6 years old, she visited her father at his office at Harvard Medical School. She petted the laboratory mice and played with his microscopes, looking at stained cells on glass slides.
Kim is now a senior at Brookline High School and does her own research on diabetes, the area of expertise of her father, Young-Bum Kim. Her project, along with one by a team of two seniors from Lexington High School, qualified as a regional finalist in the Siemens Competition, which offers two $100,000 prizes to budding scientists, mathematicians, and engineers each year.
Yesterday the students gave 12-minute public presentations and answered questions from judges during a closed-door session at MIT yesterday. Topics ranged from number theory and radio wave research to a project aimed at developing a urine test for colon cancer screening. Last night the judges announced Tim Kunisky, of Livingston, N.J., and Benjamin Song and Quan “Jack’’ Chen, of Audubon, Pa., won and had advanced to the finals.
Kim researched the connection between hepatitis B and diabetes, aiming to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes in hepatitis B-infected patients. She received a grant from the National Institutes of Health and a grant for diabetes research to help fund her project.
“We found a mechanism that links the two together,’’ she said.
Kim said she hopes to become a doctor and run a children’s diabetes clinic. Kim’s father, who works at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is a Harvard professor, said his daughter’s project sheds light on an unexplored area of diabetes research.
“This is the first research on this subject,’’ Young Kim said. “We found one by one the pathways that lead from hepatitis B to diabetes.’’
Brittney Joyce and Andrew Walsh, seniors at Lexington High, mapped the spread of avian flu and how the virus mutated, hoping to add to understanding of how to prevent future epidemics.
Joyce and Walsh, both 17, began working on their avian flu project about a year ago. They won second place at the Massachusetts State Science Fair earlier this year for research related to avian flu. While preparing for the competition, the duo weathered a total computer meltdown.
“My motherboard failed,’’ Walsh said. Joyce jumped in, “Literally, fried - like the plastic melted.’’
They recovered some of their data, but working on their research occupied all their free time. “It became our life,’’ Walsh said.
Walsh, who has played on the Titleist Junior Golf Tour, hopes to own a biotechnology company someday. Joyce said she can’t decide between science and writing, but is leaning toward becoming a pediatrician.
A total of five projects by individuals and five projects by two-student teams were chosen as semifinalists in each of six regions nationwide. Jim Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation, said this honor validates all the students’ hard work.
“These kids are endowed with a special gift,’’ he said. “We hope that all of them continue their studies and research.’’
Those candidates moving on to the finals will present their research projects again in December at New York University.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
