Davis High School continued its winning tradition at this year’s Sacramento Regional Science and Engineering Fair, with two students placing in the top three and now headed to the international competition in Pittsburgh next month.

DHS junior Benjamin Jin took second overall for his project titled “Mathematical Modeling of Calcium Fluxes in T Lymphocytes,” while classmate Ryan Hsu took third for his work on “DNA-Based Identification of Airborne Fungal Population in Sacramento Area.”

In Pennsylvania May 13-18, Jin and Hsu will compete against hundreds of students from around the world for a share of $3 million in scholarships.

The two follow in the footsteps of some very successful Davis High students. DHS senior Clara Fannjiang took first at the regional competition last year and just last month landed in the top 10 at the Intel Science Talent Search for the same science project. DHS alumni Peter Wang, Madeline Sides and Angela Yeung all competed at the international competition in recent years.

For Jin, it’s the culmination of two years worth of work, beginning with an internship in the UC Davis pharmacology department, where he worked with professors Heike Wulff and Jose Luis Puglisi.

“My work is basically an applied mathematics project,” Jin said. “The model I created is a system of equations which might affect T lymphocytes.”

And given the role of T-cells in many diseases, Jin noted, his work could carry practical implications for treatments and outcomes.

The work itself was challenging, he said, particularly learning the scientific language.

“Gathering data required reading a lot of papers,” he noted, “and that language is a couple notches above what we read at school.”

He also had to learn the MATLAB language for programming, and that, he said, “was pretty difficult also.”

Doing so well at the regional competition definitely made it worthwhile.

“I was hoping I would just get some mention,” Jin said. “Winning was super awesome.”

Now he’s focusing on improving his project before heading to Pittsburgh, where he knows he’ll be up against stiffer competition from all over the world.

“I don’t really know what to expect because I’ve never done this before,” he said. “I’ve never even been to the East Coast.”

But he’s definitely excited to go. So is classmate Hsu.

Hsu has been interning in UCD’s genome and biomedical sciences department since last summer, focusing on creating a system for collecting spores from the air.

“It was a prototype that collects spores using ionically charged surfaces,” he explained, “as opposed to filters or adhesive traps.”

His work included both the prototype for collecting the spores and actually anazlying and identifying different spores and their allergenic properties. One challenge he faced was weather-related — the lack of a typical rainy season over the past year delayed his ability to collect spores.

But it clearly worked out in the end, with Hsu taking third place at the regional competition.

“It was my first time at regionals and I had no idea what to expect,” he said. “I went in just happy that I got the experience to participate. I was really surprised at (how I did).”

He expects the competition to be tougher in Pittsburgh and at the California State Science Fair, where he’s competing later this month.

“But just having the experience is what I’m in it for,” Hsu said.

Hsu worked with professor Patrick Leung at UCD and also credits his dad, physician Ron Hsu, for assisting him at home in his efforts.

— Reach Anne Ternus-Bellamy at [email protected] or (530) 747-8051. Follow her on Twitter at @ATernusBellamy.

Comments

comments