HHS Senior Presents Work at CSH Lab
Emaad Khawaja was in the company of some of the top professional scientific minds in the county, if not the world, as the Huntington High School senior presented his research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Partners for the Future symposium.
Mr. Khawaja is one of just 14 Long Island high school seniors participating in the world-renowned CSH Lab's 2012/13 Partners for the Future program. It brings the top young scientists into contact with actual ongoing biomedical research. Participants spend a minimum of 10 hours each week from September through March doing original research under the supervision of a scientist mentor.
"After being accepted into the highly competitive program, Emaad had the opportunity to learn cutting edge techniques and learn from the best scientists in the world," said Lori Kenny, a Huntington High School science teacher who heads the school's science research program.
Mr. Khwaja worked with CSH scientists Simon Knott in the Hannon Lab on the facility's sprawling campus. "Over the past six months, I have worked on improving a standard procedure in biology, known as RNAi screening," Mr. Khwaja said. "This method is used a lot in cancer research because it allows for the expression of specific genes to be tracked. The problem with the method is that many genes that are not being expressed are counted as just the opposite. The alternative approach that I have worked on with my mentor attempts to counteract this."
The recent evening symposium allowed students in the Partners for the Future program to share their research with their CSH mentors, the members of the labs they worked in and their parents, science directors and school science research advisors.
"It was exciting to see such an elite presentation from Emaad, as I have been fortunate to watch his skills develop over the last four years," Mrs. Kenny said. "While the symposium signified the culmination of the process, he will continue to do research at the lab until he leaves for college."
"While the students learn a great deal about molecular biology and state-of-the-art research techniques, the main advantage of the program is in exposing the students to day-to-day life in a working lab," the CSH states about the Partners for the Future program. "Debunking the mythical scientist-in-a-labcoat image, the students are introduced to a world of relatively young scientists and their interactive support staff in a relaxed, problem-solving atmosphere."