RSS 2.0 FeedOctober 28, 2010, Featured Articles, Bellmore Life
Calhoun students reach new heights
Meet the Calhoun students making names for themselves.
Calhoun seniors Jenny Wu and Melissa Dileo are making waves – in school and out, researching drug combinations to help beat cancer, and developing new aspects of spacesuits that could be used when men and women walk on Mars.
Jenny, a Siemens semifinalist, earned the semifinalist distinction from work done last summer at Stony Brook University, when she developed the study “Synthesis, Biological Evaluation and Potentional Synergies of SBT 1214 and Topocan in Tumor Targeting Drug Conjugates.”
Perhaps a mouthful to say, but important nonetheless, as her studies, alongside Stony Brook’s Dr. Iwao Ojima, head of department of chemistry, sought to find drugs that could be released (activated) earlier in tumor cells, which in turn would increase potencies in other drugs within the tumor.
And she found them!
The lab is now synthesizing the drugs to create a complete drug conjugate.
Meanwhile, with Jenny deep in thought over her studies, Melissa Dileo delved into a summer program she applied to at the Polytechnic Institute at New York University, and was accepted to the program.
The program studied new aspects of spacesuits that astronauts would one day use when walking on Mars. NASA astronaut Dr. Charles Camarda was in charge of the program.
Placed into a team with other students, Melissas and the team looked at new weight distribution systems and new collars that may help astronauts in their quest to live on Mars.
The work of all students in the program was placed into a new Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design competition being sponsored.
Melissa’s team came up big, as she and her teammates won the competition. Now, Melissa is flying down to Cape Canaveral to witness the launch of the next space shuttle being launched Monday afternoon, November 1.
By the way, both students are also involved in Calhoun’s Advanced Research program.
Read their complete stories in next week’s editions.
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