Calgary 17-year-olds, working at “grad student level,” develop new tool to assess nerve damage
April 22, 2010 by admin
Around every nerve cell is a fatty sheath called myelin, which gets damaged by harmful diseases like multiple sclerosis.
Using lasers and sophisticated imaging technology, two 17-year-old Calgary high school students have found a novel way for medical scientists to assess that nerve damage.
Bishop Caroll High School students Nicholas Moore and Debbie Wang discovered a particular dye that brightly illuminates damaged myelin, a discovery that could be used to measure both damage and how well nerve repair strategies are working.
Mentor Dr. Peter Stys of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary says he was “stunned” at how quickly the pair ramped up their science knowledge and began to function at “the level of graduate students” in his neuroscience research lab. “They’ve produced some really useful data.”
Dr Stys calls the SABC a “fantastic opportunity for high school students” and of critical importance because they also get to learn as well from the work other competitors are doing. “It’s also an excellent chance to practice very important communication skills.”
The best part of the competition was being able to “work in a lab and learning about research as a career,” says Debbie. Both she and Nick are entering a bachelor of sciences program next year with the aim of doing further research.