Calhoun senior realizes research success –– again

Calhoun High School senior Jenny Wu is on quite the roll. In the fall, she was named a semifinalist in the prestigious Siemens Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition. Then, in December, she learned that she had been accepted to her “dream school” –– Yale University. This past week, she received word that she was named a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search.

The contest, sponsored by the Society for Science and the Public and the Intel Foundation, attracted 1,774 entries from across the nation this year. Wu, Calhoun’s salutatorian for the class of 2011, received a $1,000 scholarship for her big Intel win. She will learn whether she is a finalist on Jan. 26. If named a finalist, she will be invited to Washington, D.C. to compete for additional scholarship money.

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.