Juan Diego students spend summer with science

By Christine Celestino

Chair, Juan Diego Science Dept.

DRAPER — Six Juan Diego Catholic High School students participated in the Summer Science Internship Program during the summer, including one who was listed as a co-author of a scientific journal submission.

This was the second year for the internship program, which partners Juan Diego students with researchers at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy. The internship is part of Juan Diego’s Academy of Sciences program and is funded in part by a $50,000 yearly grant from the ALSAM Foundation. This year, six students performed individual research projects in labs ranging across the departments and disciplines within the College of Pharmacy.

The program began with a week-long lab ‘boot camp’ at JDCHS, where students learned basic microscopy, statistics and genetic recombination techniques. The internship program that followed was two weeks longer than last year’s, giving students additional time to orient to a lab while still completing their research project by the close of summer.

Students spent a minimum of 240 total hours in their lab, with two students completing more than 320 hours. As a result, the findings presented at the July 30 student symposium were more in depth and more complete than last year.

Crystal Chau, working with Dr. Amy Barrios, studied the ability of phosphatase enzymes to remove sulfur groups from proteins.

Blake Holding, working with Dr. Gary Yost, looked for biomarkers of asthma medications within the lungs.

Evan Makin, working with Dr. Eric Schmidt, created plasmids containing fungal proteins with potential uses in medicine.

Nelson Nieto, working with Dr. Karen Wilcox, studied the effectiveness of two potential epilepsy medications.

Samantha Schumm, working with Dr. Tom Cheatham, tested possible computer models of RNA binding.

Adrian Shimpi, working with Dr. Carol Lim, studied a gene therapy technique for treating leukemia. As a result of his work, Shimpi has been included as a co-author on Dr. Lim’s most recent journal submission.

All of the students completed research papers that will be submitted to several competitions, including the 2011 Intermountain Junior Science and Humanities Symposium and the 2010 Seimon’s Scholarship competition.

Recruitment for the Summer 2011 program begins in September. All interested students who have completed both biology and chemistry at Juan Diego may apply.