Two Long Island Intel semifinalists carried out their work at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. The Intel Science Talent Search is a nationwide program encouraging independent research in the areas of science, math, engineering and medicine. The prestigious awards are given to the top 300 of 1,600 high school seniors who participated in the awards program, sponsored by Intel Corporation. Each semi-finalist and his/her high school receive $1,000. At the end of January, 40 finalists will be chosen from the 300 semifinalists to present their work in Washington DC.

Stephanie Wang, 17, of Roslyn High School, and Alex Kamath, also 17, of Chaminade High School in Mineola, developed their projects under a Feinstein mentorship program. Alex has spent three summers at the Manhasset research facility. The past two years he has been working in the Laboratory of Medicinal Biochemistry, studying the effects of fatty acids on endothelial cells that line the blood vessels. He tested several fatty acids, including the popular omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, and found that both had anti-inflammatory effects on the endothelial cells. Other fatty acids did not have an anti-inflammatory effect. He was able to identify the anti-inflammatory effects of the fatty acids by studying the STAT3 signaling pathway in endothelial cells. STAT3 is a transcription factor that is involved in inflammation.

“This is the first time anyone has looked at this signaling pathway as it relates to fatty acids,” said Christine Metz, PhD, head of the Feinstein’s Laboratory of Medicinal Biochemistry. The finding is important, she added, because “diet can influence your body’s inflammatory response in ways we have yet to understand.”

Stephanie Wang’s career as a young scientist also began a few summers ago. Her father, Ping Wang, MD, is a scientist at the Feinstein and leads the way in developing therapies for sepsis, trauma and shock. His daughter was interested in stroke and wanted to know what happens when human brain cells lose oxygen and whether there were experimental drugs to block the resulting death of brain cells. Working with Weng-Lang Yang, PhD, Stephanie used an experimental medicine her father developed called AM-AMBP-1 to treat a human neuronal cell line deprived of oxygen.

Normally, when neurons are starved of oxygen it sets in a process called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Stephanie found that apoptosis was increased five-fold under conditions of hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation. When she treated the neurons with the AM-AMBP-1, apoptosis was blocked by almost 85 percent. She also discovered that there was an increase in ATP, the cell’s primary source of energy. Her research didn’t stop there. She studied the process to figure out how the medicine was saving the cells from suicide.

The next step will be to carry out similar experiments in laboratory models of stroke. She joined her colleagues in writing up the findings and she is lead author of the paper submitted to a journal called BBA, Biochimica et Biophsysica Acta. Stephanie was also a regional finalist in the 2008-09 Siemens competition. She already received early admission from Yale University.

Science isn’t her only passion. Stephanie is also a painter, and in April had a show of her work at the Roslyn Library. She sold bookmarks with her prints and raised $300, which she donated to a local charity to raise awareness about drinking and driving. She is also president of the school’s math team and competes locally, regionally and nationally. For more information contact Jamie Talan, science writer-in-residence at 516-562-1232.