At the UCLA Liquid Biopsy Laboratory, it is not uncommon to find researchers discussing their findings among other professors and scientists. So, when 21 high school students showed up with extensive cancer research presentations, the professionals were blown away. Castaic High School students were awarded first place at a cancer research symposium on Aug.
2, sponsored by the UCLA Liquid Biopsy Laboratory, for their six-week research project presentation about the disproportionate number of non-smoking Asian and Asian American women diagnosed with lung cancer. The symposium was organized by Research in Focus, a summer program formed last year for high school students that takes place over the course of six weeks and ends with a trip to the lab in Westwood. Students registered in the program start off by selecting a question of inquiry that can be answered through literature review.
The program then ends at the laboratory, where the students present their findings to UCLA professors and judges. Kate Song, the director of Research in Focus, came up with the idea for the program because she felt like her students needed a different approach to learning. “I’ve been teaching high school science for 23 years now, and students never really got hands-on experience doing research, so I reached out to a professor who was actually the father of a former student of mine,” Song said.
Song said that Hsian-Rong Tseng, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and principal investigator at the UCLA Liquid Biopsy Lab, was the person who gave her the idea to have the summer program focus on cancer research. “I sent a few students of mine to his [biopsy] lab and they ended up doing internships, but I wanted to give more students an opportunity,” Song said. “Because his lab was studying childhood cancers, he said, ‘Bring your students to the lab at the end of the summer and they can present their findings to us.
’ I was super excited that he offered that to us.” Castaic High School senior Chloe Na was on the first-place team and said that this was her second time participating in the program. Na said she was excited about this year’s project because, last year, students were limited to researching only childhood cancers.
“It was a bit difficult, to be honest,” Na said. “Non-small cell lung cancer is a pretty understudied field, along with the factors that contribute to why Asian women in particular have the highest rates of non-small cell lung cancer compared to any other group.” Na said she was inspired to pursue oncology because a handful of her relatives were diagnosed with different forms of cancer, which led her to apply to the program.
She also said her group came up with their question based off an article that mentioned why so many seemingly healthy, non-smoking Asian American women were diagnosed with lung cancer. “I saw an article saying that Asian American women actually have an increasing rate of lung cancer by 2% every year, while every other race was going down in lung cancer incidence in the United States, which was interesting,” Na said. Tseng presented the awards to the students at the end of the symposium and said that Na’s group was impressive and well-put together.
“The start [of the presentation] from the family connection was articulated so well,” said Tseng, during the awards ceremony. “Even now, I’ve seen some presentations given by UCLA undergrad students that [have difficulty matching] the quality that [this team] delivered.” Na said she was not expecting her group to win, because other UCLA groups had also participated in the symposium.
“We were really shocked, but very happy because we put in like 75 to 80 hours of research that we did on our own, and we did this over like a five- or six-week period,” Na said. “It was very intense.” On top of participating in Research in Focus, Na also formed the Childhood Cancer Research and Awareness club at her high school to spread awareness about Song’s program and childhood cancer research.
Song said that, since last year, the Research in Focus program has grown from 16 students to 21 students this summer. The winners of this year’s symposium were all Song’s students, including Na, who said she was grateful to have a teacher like Song. “I think Miss Song is a very selfless teacher and that she’s like, one-in-a-million,” Na said.
“She does this on her own time, and she doesn’t get paid to do this. When I asked her why she continued to want to do the program for us, she said that it was just a really good opportunity for her students.” More information about Research in Focus can be found at www.
researchinfocus.org..
