Students perform college-level research in real labs

Sacramento Bee
August 16th, 2007
By Ramon Coronado - Bee Staff Writer

Louie Lab High School Researcher
Zach Stauber

Zachary Stauber spent last summer running, swimming, going to the movies and just hanging out with his friends. This summer, the 16-year-old was in a laboratory at the University of California, Davis, studying ways to illuminate nano particles in living cells. The hope is that by tracing them, one day a cure can be found for cancer. "I'm doing research on chemically synthesizing silicon and particles that are 50,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair," Stauber said from the Genome Biomedical Sciences building on campus.

Stauber was one of about 40 students from Northern California and elsewhere who participated in this year's Young Scholars Program.

The six-week advanced biology and natural science program required the select group of high school students to do college-level research in professional laboratories.

Each student worked on differing projects and by the end of the program, which began June 24, they were to produce a professional-level research paper and explain their work in a talk before their peers and others.

During the program, Gopal Lalchandani studied the molecular biology of protein. "I'm trying to find how it reacts to oxidative stress," Lalchandani said.

Amie Cai of Folsom is researching the genetic code of the E. coli bacteria, and Kaili Zhou of Folsom is studying how a specific kind of protein is modified after it has been synthesized.

All four of the 16-year-olds will be seniors in the International Baccalaureate program at Mira Loma High School.

Michael Jin, a 17-year-old Rio Americano High School student, is looking for ways to stop the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. "Should my research work out, it will show how to disable the link between the virus and the protein," Jin said.

J. Richard Pomeroy, program director, said each of the students have high grade-point averages and have taken biology and two years of college preparatory mathematics.

Some have parents who are chemists, doctors and engineers, and many students play musical instruments.

They must be recommended by their teachers and then submit personal essays about themselves and their ambitions. "Each of these students will be accepted by the best universities in the country," Pomeroy said. "Part of the purpose of the program is to be challenging for these high-achieving kids."

During the mornings of the first two weeks, participants attend lectures on recent developments in biology and natural sciences. They spend their afternoons doing lab work.

During the last four weeks of the program, the students, who live on campus, work full time in the laboratories on their research papers.

The research papers hone their technical writing skills, and their speeches at the end of the program help develop communicative skills, Pomeroy said.

Communication between high academic achievers and lay people can often be a challenge, said Pomeroy, who, before taking over the program 14 years ago, was a continuation high school teacher for 20 years. "It is difficult for the academic world to make their technical knowledge understandable to lay people," Pomeroy said.

Zhou couldn't agree more. "I sometimes get frustrated when someone doesn't get it," Zhoe said of his research and technical knowledge.

Communicating to the masses how science works is vital, Zhoe said. Stem cell research and global warming are prime examples of controversial issues involving highly complex science, he said.

Cai said the science community and the rest of the world sometimes have different meanings for the same words. "Is it them not understanding or is it you not explaining it?" Cai asked.

Kelly Chen, a 17-year-old Sheldon High School student who is studying how to control the amount of starch in wheat, said she doesn't like public speaking but was looking forward to explaining her paper in her presentation. "It's ironic. I'm uncomfortable in front of people, but I'm looking forward to it. It's like a graduation. It's like the punch line," Chen said.