Teen's DNA work is hailed

For a tech-savvy 17-year-old, the world is full of distractions. There's X-Box, My Space, You Tube, the NBA, the NFL, and whatever gyrating MTV star is on the latest media saturation tour.

Arjun Ramamurti is a tech-savvy sports fan, but he is not easily distracted. So, three years ago, when he became fascinated by the unsolved jigsaw puzzle that is the evolutionary path of the 15-pound, tree-dwelling, African guenon monkey, he set to work.

Day after day, starting during his sophomore year at Lexington High School, Ramamurti would go back to his Birch Hill Lane home after class and download the genetic codes of the s ub-Saharan monkeys and compare and contrast their characteristics in a seemingly Sisyphean quest to distill their ancestry. He isolated 11,500 base pairs of DNA code, divided their physical characteristics up into 11 categories, and then he poured himself into making sense of a baffling puzzle spread across three dimensions and millions of years.

Last week, that persistence paid off. Ramamurti, bespectacled and as sincere as he is diligent, was named the New England regional winner in the most prestigious high school science competition in the nation. Next week, he will compete in the national finals of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology in New York.

"This is the highest honor anybody can remember at the Lexington high school science department," said Susan Offner, the teacher who launched Ramamurti on his quest three years ago. "We are absolutely thrilled for him."

Ramamurti is sanguine about the accomplishment. He didn't pursue the challenge for any reward, he said. Rather, he just got caught up in really wanting to know. "Biology has always been my favorite subject, and I just stuck with it," he said. "It just kind of built up and took on a life of its own."

The mystery behind the evolutionary path of the Guenon monkeys has baffled scientists for generations because the animals carry extra DNA that clouds their evolution. Figuring out the path they took is like trying to put together a huge jigsaw puzzle with thousands of extraneous pieces mixed inside the box.

Ramamurti's breakthrough was combining old school observation with genetics. He compared sets of the monkey's DNA -- which he accessed from the I nternet -- with physical and behavioral characteristics of the animals taken from different locations.

By using both sets of data and painstakingly matching up the common denominators, he was able to posit an evolutionary path more advanced and detailed than anything previously considered. At the end of his research, he proposed that the monkeys had evolved through 16 species over 2.3 million years and across a broad swath of Africa.

"His research offers new insights into how traits develop in primates -- and even humans -- during evolution," said Mary-Lou Pardue, a professor of biology at MIT and a judge at the regional competition.

The twist on Ramamurti's entry is that it almost didn't happen. A week before the contest, he was dejected by a poor showing at the state science fair. Though he had worked intensely on the project for three years, it had merited just an honorable mention. Offner's read on the poor showing: The judges didn't fully grasp the significance of the work.

But, at the time, Ramamurti just felt discouraged. He figured the Siemens competition would be so much more intense, it wasn't worth the time and effort to continue.

Two weeks before the contest, Offner, who, when he was in 10th grade, had turned Ramamurti on to the mystery behind the monkey's evolution, suggested he enter anyway.

Keenly aware that she would be writing his college recommendation, Ramamurti obliged. He rushed together a paper fitting the format of the Siemens contest. A few weeks later, at home watching college football on a Saturday afternoon, he took a call telling him he was one of six finalists in the regional competition to be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

He was thrilled, he said, but he was still totally unprepared to win. The contest refers to itself as the superbowl of high school science competitions and with good reason. It draws the most talented students from around the country. Indeed, last year's winner, Michael Viscardi, found the solution to a math problem that had been baffling mathematicians since the 19th century.

"This is master's- or doctoral-level work," said Jim Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation. "These kids are the best and brightest."

After his presentation and a 12-minute question-and-answer session with some of the most accomplished scientists at MIT, Ramamurti was announced the winner.

"I totally wasn't expecting to win, especially given the caliber of the other projects," Ramamurti said. "But it's a mixed blessing: It's a great honor, but it's a lot of additional work."

The finals, the winner of which will receive a $100,000 prize, will be held in New York from Nov. 30 through Dec. 5.

So, is this the start of a great career in biology or zoology? Maybe, maybe not.

"The thing about these really outstanding students is that they're great at everything," Offner said.

Ramamurti is an accomplished cellist (his favorite piece of music is Dvorak's concerto in B minor), he speaks Spanish and Tamil, and is fascinated by political science. He scored 2,360 on his college boards, 40 points shy of perfect.

His twin sister, Gita, scored a 2,380. Both are waiting to hear whether they will receive early acceptance to Harvard. Ramamurti said he has not decided on a major.

"Whatever he does," Offner said, "he will do it very, very well."

Douglas Belkin can be reached at dbelkin@globe.com