Calhoun senior named Siemens Westinghouse semifinalist

Calhoun High School senior Jenny Wu understands pain. As a volunteer in the emergency room at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, the 17-year-old has seen the agony of injury and disease –– and, she said, she wants to help.

That is why she has decided to pursue a career in medical research, focusing on pain management. And, with her recent win in the Siemens Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition, she is well on her way.

The contest, sponsored by the nonprofit Siemens Foundation, attracts thousands of entries from across the nation each year. Wu, Calhoun’s salutatorian for the class of 2011, was recently named a semifinalist in the competition.

Wu’s 18-page research paper focused on her work on cancer tumor-targeting drugs this past summer in the Simons Research Fellowship Program with Dr. Iwao Ojima, director of chemical biology and drug discovery at SUNY Stony Brook.

Forty of Long Island’s top high school science students applied for the Simons Fellowship. Only three were accepted.

Wu looked into whether firing two drugs –– Taxol and Topotecan–– one after the other increases their efficacy. Researchers and doctors refer to the drugs as “smart bombs.” They shoot through the bloodstream and attach themselves to cancer tumors, where they deliver a direct megadose of medication.

By contrast, traditional chemotherapy floods the bloodstream with drugs, which causes hair loss, nausea and fatigue. Think of it like a carpet bomb, destroying sick and healthy cells. “There are a lot of terrible side effects of chemotherapy,” said Wu.

Wu found that Taxol and Topotecan are indeed more effective when taken in combination and in short succession. It was what scientists call a “novel finding.”

Wu said that she had hoped to chemically link the two drugs, so they could travel through the bloodstream in unison and then fire one after the other when they reached their target, expediting their delivery. But time ran out when her fellowship ended in August, and she was unable to complete the final step of her project.