Sylvania students finalists for international science fair
Apr. 11—Two Northview High School juniors will be entering their medical research in a prestigious international science fair next month in which more than $4 million in scholarships and awards will be at stake.
Northview students Anish Gupta, 16, and Haroon Lughmani, 17, are among six statewide finalists, chosen by the Ohio Academy of Science from 95 participants in its Buckeye Science and Engineering Fair last month, to advance to the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair.
They will compete in the ISEF event — considered the most prestigious Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics competition for high school students — with about 1,700 students from 70 countries.
This year's ISEF's fair, to be conducted virtually, will start with judges assessing students' projects from May 3 through May 6. Later events including panels, finalists' exhibit hall, career hall, ISEF College Fair, and STEM experiential hall then will occur May 16 through May 21.
The Gupta and Lughmani youths said their projects are rooted in hopes of inciting social change through medicine.
"It's been a really good experience overall," young Lughmani said. "It's amazing how any person can make a difference if they really want to. We shouldn't have to have preconceptions stop us. It's not like anyone knows in-depth about a topic out of nowhere, you must put in the effort."
Young Gupta said his peers inspired him to use his passions for a greater purpose.
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"So much social change has happened this summer and people of all ages have been pioneering in those changes," he said. "I realized that you don't have to be a certain type of person or age to create change. Since I was always interested in science and medicine, I saw as a kid in high school I can do this and help society," he said.
Young Gupta's project involves finding treatment for inflammatory disease by tracing molecules' bonding sites — a research interest inspired by his own friends' battles with inflammatory disease.
"Chronic inflammation is the number one cause of death around the world, and after seeing how COVID has affected our community and has killed over 2.8 million in just a year by inflaming the lungs, I wanted to see what I could do to solve the problem with these inflammatory diseases," he said.
Northview's advanced-placement science program enabled him to work in a University of Toledo laboratory to further study molecular bonding's impact on such disease, which he hopes will assist doctors treating such patients.
"This is useful information, because if I block these bonding sites, I can stop the inflammatory response produced by the pathway," young Gupta said.
The Lughmani youth, meanwhile, is researching how to prevent kidney injuries among diabetes patients who have had heart attacks or mild cardiac infarctions. Hemoglobin-induced kidney injuries are a problem for such patients, he said, and acute kidney injury is fatal to between 40 and 50 percent of those who suffer it among the United States' 34.2 million diabetes patients.
"I thought if we could develop any treatment or better this research it could really help society at large," he said. "...Doctors have noticed this [kidney issue] for a long time but have not figured a solution. My project is looking at how we should adjust these treatments — how we can adjust the concentration of these treatments to better treat these patients."
During the Buckeye Science and Engineering Fair, students submitted essays and video presentations of their work, after which they were interviewed by a 10-judge panel that then selected the ISEF finalists. Along with the two Northview students, finalists were chosen from high schools in Mason, Upper Arlington, and Tipp City, Ohio.
"I presented my research and moved through the hierarchy of these competitions and thanks to God we're in ISEF," the Lughmani youth said.
First Published April 10, 2021, 4:00pm
