(South Orange, NJ—September 26, 2016) Five High Tech High School students, along with Dr. Dmitri Lavlinski, attended a poster session at Seton Hall University, organized by the North Jersey Section of the American Chemical Society, announced Dr. Joseph Giammarella, Principal of High Tech.
These students, members of the American Chemical Society’s Project SEED summer research program, each received $2,500, while gaining valuable hands-on experience on the frontlines in research labs.
High Tech High School junior Anna Rezk of Bayonne, working under Dr. Woo Lee at Stevens Institute of Technology, had produced “Cell Adhesion Mediated Drug Resistance of Patient Multiple Myeloma Cells Cultured Ex Vivo,” which earned her First Place at the poster session. Over the summer, Rezk practiced her presentation in two underclassmen classes, receiving very welcomed responses.
Also earning First Place for their posters, Tanushri Shah and Jeel Shah, both juniors from North Bergen, studied “The Effect of Cellular Radiation on the Behavior of Apis mellifera,” which the pair based on observations of High Tech’s own beehives. They found that this type of radiation results in disruption of the communication between bees, causing no honey production, a lack of self-defense, and adverse effects on reproduction.
Another Project SEED junior, Shelina Chotrani of Secaucus, worked with research mentor Dr. Christian Traba at St. Peters University. Chotrani’s poster reflected her experiments on “The Effect of Low-power Argon Plasma Exposure on Staphylococcus aureus Biofilms.” Meanwhile, High Tech High School senior and Guttenberg resident Hady Chahine, under the tutelage of Dr. Wendy Wang, performed research at Stevens Institute of Technology on “Regeneration of Skin Cells Using Biomedic Fibers.” Both Chotrani and Chahine earned Third Place at the poster session.
The American Chemical Society’s Project SEED summer research program allows those students from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods to experience the intriguing, highly dedicated routines of a chemist. Students entering their junior or senior year in high school work alongside scientist-mentors on special research projects in industrial, academic, and federal laboratories, where the students can discover chemistry firsthand as a career path as their graduation approaches.
