High school students mentored by CBS prof win berth at Canada-Wide Science Fair
BY ANDREW VOWLES
Prof. Peter Krell, Molecular and Cellular Biology, won't be there in person. But he says part of him will be riding on the hopes of two Guelph high school students taking a promising science fair project to the national competition this month.
Krell, who served as this year's mentor to the pair of Grade 11 students at Centennial CVI, confesses he'd feel more than a little vicarious thrill if he were attending the event in mid-May. Harking back to his own national competition entry more than 40 years ago, he says: “I'd be like a high school kid again.”
A project on a hormonal insecticide to kill crane flies won teens Xue (Shirley) Liang and Katherine Sowden an award at the Waterloo-Wellington Science and Engineering Fair in Kitchener earlier this year. That won them a berth at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Vancouver.
In late April, they also took fourth place at the Aventis Biotech Challenge in the greater Toronto area. They were up against about 25 other entries, including projects on speeding up the healing of wounds, a possible diabetes drug, “light-up” plants and a natural sunscreen product. For the top project, students genetically modified an enzyme to enhance a plant's ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The Guelph students investigated the use of an artificial hormone as a possible control against the spread of European crane flies. Their homegrown project stemmed from Liang's observation of the brown patches on the lawn of her family's home. Not even chemical sprays could quell the infestation, she says.
She decided to team up with Sowden, who had worked last year on a project using water fleas to test for toxins in water.
Looking through research articles, they found a paper by Krell describing similar-sounding work on the genetics of the spruce budworm.
Having mentored several other students and even judged local and national contests, Krell was keen to help out. He says he's never been involved in a high school project as complex as this one.
“Unlike many students who are interested simply in doing a science fair project, these guys said: ‘I want to do science.'”
He gave the students numerous references to read and advised them on their experiments. He also gave them space in his lab in the newly opened science complex, including access to sophisticated molecular equipment.
“All the molecular techniques had to be done here,” he says, adding that the teens served as good role models for his own graduate students.
Liang says a high point came when they ran their first protein gels. “We never did that before. We said, ‘Wow, this is the real stuff.'”
Sowden has enjoyed rubbing shoulders with researchers in Krell's lab. “It's nice to meet people who are interested in science,” she says.
Pointing to the skills they honed in presenting their project and answering judges' questions, Sowden adds: “It really brings together everything we've learned.”
The duo spent hours in the lab on evenings and weekends. They also grew fruit fly larvae in Liang's basement — and kept samples in her refrigerator — and tested the effects of the hormone in repeated trials. Krell had identified the particular chemical during his work with an American company screening compounds for controlling spruce budworm.
The students say their research is a long way from market, including testing to develop a truly environmentally friendly version. But they're interested in further studies of insects' hormone receptors and genetic material.
Liang plans to study science at university and hopes to become a professor or teacher. (Her mother, Dan-Hui Yang, works on viral DNA microarrays as a post-doc in Krell's lab.) Sowden hopes to combine her interest in chemistry with a business degree and perhaps do marketing work for a drug company. “I just find chemistry really fascinating,” she says.
Krell thinks the numerous hours they spent on the project, including detailed replication of their results, will make for a winning entry at the national event, which he calls the “gold standard” for science fairs in Canada.
“They have it,” he says, referring to their scientist-in-the-making qualities. “It's a good project, and they know what they're talking about. They think outside the box. They have good ideas about what to do next. They're thinking like scientists.”
Forty years ago, his own project on a hormone called thyroxine won honourable mention at the national competition in Montreal.
“After that, I decided not to go into physiology because it was too complicated.”
Doug Gajic, a science and biotechnology teacher at Centennial, discussed the project with the students initially last fall but soon saw they could pursue the research largely on their own, using U of G resources.
Gajic says he's a great fan of school-university connections such as research co-op placements and mentorships.
“I think it's something we've underused in Guelph, something we should definitely pursue. I think it's a great connection.”
Prof. Terry Beveridge, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Massimo Marcone, a technician and adjunct professor in the Department of Food Science, also served as mentors for two other Centennial projects entered in the Aventis competition in April.
