Students in Shaker High School's Science Research Program won numerous awards at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Science Fair, held in late March.

Prateek Baghel won first place at the RPI Science Fair for his prostate cancer research. He is now a finalist in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, the world's most prestigious pre-college science competition.

April 9, 2009 - Groundbreaking medical research by two Shaker High School students may help doctors develop more effective cancer treatments.

Prateek Baghel and Humza Ahmed, both Shaker juniors, won first and second place, respectively, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Science Fair for research they conducted at Capital Region medical facilities. Four other Shaker students also won awards at the Science Fair, which was held in late March.

Baghel has been conducting prostate cancer research at a private medical facility in Albany for the past 2 1/2 years. Through his research, he discovered that, contrary to medical understanding, androgen receptors actually play a role in the development of androgen independent prostate cancer. He won a $40,000 scholarship to RPI, $500 in cash, and a certificate of recognition from the U.S. Air Force. First place also automatically qualified him as a finalist in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s largest international pre-college science competition.

Ahmed has been conducting cancer research at Albany Medical College since spring 2008. His research has focused on the use of a naturally occurring chemical and the possibility it could be used as a chemotherapy drug or to make other chemotherapy drugs safer for patients. He won a $20,000 scholarship to the Albany College of Pharmacy and $50 from the American Society for Microbiology, Eastern NY Branch. He also won first place in the 2009 subregional competition of the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Other Shaker students who received awards at the RPI Science Fair are:

• Alexander Bush- MU Alpha Theta Best Mathematics project Certificate

• Maira Malik- US Army Certificate for Outstanding Project and US Navy and Marine Corps Certificate for Outstanding Project

• Zunaira Malik- INTEL Excellence in Computer Science Award, $200 and Certificate

• Anjali Puttachi – Third-place medallion, $200 prize, and invite to the STANYS Science Congress Competition

Science Research Program

Medical breakthroughs can sometimes lead to patented drugs or methods, and thus lucrative financial rewards. But Baghel and Ahmed say that won’t happen in their cases, and each emphasizes that they didn’t get involved for the money anyway.

“The best result for us would be to see our research published so the scientific community could read it and conduct further tests and confirm our results,” Ahmed said.

Both Baghel and Ahmed are students in Shaker’s Science Research Program. But the program isn’t what it sounds like, said Keith Bogert, chair of the high school’s science department.

Students do not learn about science in the three-year program. Instead, the program helps scientifically motivated students find an internship and a research mentor and teaches the students how to conduct research, take notes, document their findings and compile their findings into reports and presentations, Bogert said.

Students cannot simply enroll in the program; they must apply, they must be sophomores to do so and they must continue to take all other required science classes, such as biology and chemistry. However, the program is part of the University in the High School, so students can earn up to 12 college credits upon successful completion.

Tracking androgen receptors

Prostate cancer kills an estimated 30,000 men each year, and several years ago Baghel decided he wanted to conduct prostate cancer research. He found a scientist in Albany who was doing such work and was 15 years old when he was hired as the scientist’s assistant.

For the past 2 ½ years, Baghel has worked as many as 40 hours a week during the summer and up to 12 hours a week during the school year. The only time of the year he’s not conducting research is during the high school soccer season.

One issue in treating prostate cancer that had stumped medical professionals dealt with the role of androgen receptors in androgen-independent prostate cancer. Not surprisingly, treatment of such cancer targets the androgen receptors, and the problem for doctors is that even when androgen receptor growth is suppressed during treatment, prostate cancer often returns in a different form. Because androgen receptors are generally not found in this second round of prostate cancer, researchers called it androgen independent prostate cancer.

Humza Ahmed's cancer research took second place at the RPI Science Fair and first place in the subregional competition of the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Baghel said that he was not convinced that the receptors were not involved. To determine if he was right, however, he had to follow the receptors from start to finish, and he wasn’t sure how to do so. His mentor at the research institute gave him an article about breast cancer research in which researchers tagged substances with fluorescent chemicals that allowed them to follow the substance as the disease progressed. Baghel used a similar method to follow the androgen receptors and determined that they were still functional in androgen-independent cancer.

Red wine and resveratrol

As Humza Ahmed conducts his research, he thinks about the story of the British girl he read in a magazine. The girl had survived a bout with cancer, but she was dying because doxorubicin, the chemotherapy drug used to treat her cancer, had wreaked havoc on her heart.

That’s the risk in using doxorubicin to treat cancer, Ahmed says, it can kill the patient because it attacks the heart, liver and kidneys.

Working with Dr. Rebecca S. Keller in the Cardiovascular Science Department at Albany Medical College, Ahmed’s research has focused on doxorubicin and another chemical, resveratrol, which is not currently used to treat cancer. Resveratrol is a chemical found in the skin of red grapes, which are used to make red wine, and research has found that it helps to limit cancer growth and is also believed to protect the heart. Ahmed hopes his research will eventually show that a combination of resveratrol and doxorubicin is an effective cancer treatment.

Both Baghel and Ahmed plan to major in science in college.