The three best winners of the research of scientific talents Regeneron: Matteo Paz (center) – First place; Ava thanks cummings (left) – second place; And Owen Jianwen Zhang (right) – third place, celebrating their achievements during the award ceremony.
Chris Ayers photography/ /Licensed by Society for Science
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Chris Ayers photography/ /Licensed by Society for Science
Two high school students were recognized for their innovative research when looking for this year’s Regeneron scientific talents, the oldest science and mathematics competition in the country. The award ceremony took place Tuesday evening in Washington, DC
Matteo Paz, 18, of Pasadena, California, took first place for his research on the detection of objects in the night sky. Using algorithms he designed, PAZ has sorted the value of a decade of astronomical data, 200 teraoctes in total, leading to a catalog of 2 million celestial objects, of which 1.5 million are new candidate discoveries.
“There are really a lot of use cases for what I found here, and that’s why I am excited about it,” said Paz. “For example, a prototype of this catalog is already used by a distinct research group of Caltech trying to analyze these things called M-Dwarfs, which can help us understand what exoplanets, extraterrestrial worlds in orbit around other stars, can actually be habitable for humans like us.”
The second winner, Ava Cummings, 18, of Smithfield, NC, created a model using fruit flies to study Stac-3 disorder, a rare muscle disease identified for the first time in the members of the Lombee tribe in North Carolina.
“He has a lot of links with my cultural history, so I was very interested in doing more research on this disease and also introducing new treatments that could help improve the quality of life of individuals within my tribe,” said Cummings.
His research has revealed that a combination of the experimental tirasemtiv drug and plant -based treatment made from nettles produced the best results in its fruit fly subjects.
“It led me to appreciate the way in which the bridge between modern medicine and traditional indigenous medicinal practices can be very applicable in the scientific and medicine community,” she said.
The two students intend to continue their passions in college, opening the way to the future of scientific discovery.
Edited for radio by Reena Advani. Product and edited for the web by Majd al-Waheidi.