SSHS pair make Intel semis

South Side High School seniors Alyssa Ehrlich and Lori Ying are best friends, and do nearly everything together. So it’s no surprise that they were on a field trip together earlier this month. The pair were at Queens College, on a tour of the various science labs there.

They went with a group to make ice cream using liquid nitrogen, and had just finished when they were called over by their science research teacher, Herb Weiss. “After the excitement of the liquid nitrogen had worn off, Mr. Weiss said, ‘Come here,’” Ehrlich recalled. “And he said, ‘You two are Intel semifinalists.’ And Lori goes, ‘Wait, who? Us?’” They both laughed as Ehrlich continued the story. “So she gives me a hug, and we’re really uncoordinated, so we fell. So we’re on the ground laughing, and all the other students are looking.”

Their excitement was understandable: Ehrlich and Ying were two of just 300 students nationwide who had been named semifinalists in the Intel Science Talent Search, which is widely regarded as the country’s most prestigious pre-college science competition.

Ehrlich’s project, “Effects of Starvation on Wild Type and Adipose60 Mutant Drosophila Melanogaster,” and Ying’s, “Female Mating Patterns and Mate Quality in the Dengue Vector Mosquito, Aedes Aegypti,” were among the 60 chosen from Long Island.

Their research is much easier to understand than its titles are to spell: Ehrlich studied why it is harder for obese fruit flies to lose weight during starvation than it is for normal fruit flies — which could help explain why it’s harder for obese people to lose weight than those who are more inclined to be skinny.

Ying looked into whether mosquitoes that are genetically altered not to carry diseases like malaria and dengue fever, known as transgenic mosquitoes, were viable mates for normal female mosquitoes, since the transgenic mosquitoes have not been introduced into the wild. If the females were to mate with them, it would spread the altered genes and eventually remove the mosquitoes’ ability to be carriers of the viruses.

Weiss played down his role in the students’ work. “[I] get out of the way, basically,” he said. “It was basically, let the girls do what they’re doing. I just try to find a mentor for the kids and then let them run with their projects.”

And run they did. Although students who enter the Intel competition are required to have a mentor in their field to aid them — Ehrlich’s is Dr. Beverly Clendening of Hofstra University and Ying’s is Dr. Laura Harrington of Cornell University — they did much of the work on their own. “She’s great,” Ehrlich said of Clendening. “I like to work really independently, but if I have questions or need help designing something, she always offers her knowledge.”

“I think she offered the same amount of intervention as Alyssa’s mentor did,” Ying said of Harrington. “She was really nice about everything, too.”

On Wednesday, after the Herald went to press, Intel narrowed the field of 300 to 40 finalists. The girls said that even if chosen, they weren’t planning careers in insect studies. “She wants to be an anesthesiologist,” Ehrlich said of Ying, who has been accepted at the University of Pennsylvania. Ehrlich, who plans to attend Columbia University, said, “And I want to be a neurosurgeon.”

Added Ying: “We want to open up a clinic together.”

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