Great Projects From First Google Science Fair Finalists

Posted on July 20, 2011  Comments (4)

15 finalists (from 3 different age groups – 13-14 years old, 15-16 and 17-18) were selected. 11 finalists were from the USA and 1 each from Singapore, Canada, India and South Africa. These examples of what can be done with imagination, effort and a scientific mindset is great.

The grand prize winner, Shree Boseer’s project:

Each year, over 21,000 women are diagnosed with ovariancancer – the 5th leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women in the United States. One of the most common drugs usedin ovarian cancer chemotherapy is cisplatin, a platinum-based chemotherapy treatment. While the drug affects ordinary cells, the significantly higher replication frequency of cancer cells causes cisplatin to have a greater impact in malignant cells. However, cancer cells often develop resistance to cisplatin, rendering the treatment ineffective. To improve the efficiency of cisplatin treatment, this research sought to determine whether AMP kinase, an energy protein of cell, plays a role in the development of cisplatin resistance. Studies with various techniques showed a significant difference on cell death caused by cisplatin insensitive and resistant ovarian cancer cells when AMPK was inhibited,suggesting that AMPK plays a role in the development of resistance. This work,in addition to offering a new treatment regime, also furthers our understanding of ovarian cancer and cancers in general.

This is a great project and the experience for the students is wonderful. Still I do think the prizes should be much larger given all the large corporations involved. Get involved with the next Google Science fair.

Google Science Fair 2011 Projects semi finalists – Intel Science and Engineering Fair 2009 Webcasts – Hats off to the winners of the inaugural Google Science Fair – President Obama Speaks on Getting Students Excited About Science and Engineering

4 Responses to “Great Projects From First Google Science Fair Finalists”

  1. Anonymous
    July 21st, 2011 @ 2:58 am

    Congrats to Shree Boseer’s who has won the prize. I think Google is doing a remarkable job by organizing Science fairs like these. I hope Google will towards expanding it and organizing it on a much larger scale in future too. The projects are quite impressive and sounds innovative and our best wishes are with them for their future. Thanks for posting.

  2. Jerry
    July 27th, 2011 @ 1:53 pm

    I think Google should make more science fair like this, specialy the one featuring green technology, consider we need energy source other than fosil energy source.

  3. Anonymous
    August 1st, 2011 @ 5:58 am

    Well john it was a very good event and obviously many students are really interested to do something unique for this world.
    one thing i don’t understand yet that Google is already involved in Digital Media and i accept that nothing anyone else can cross Google but why Google involving in Science not technologies? is google any Scientific organization ? really they stupid could not seat comfortable.
    but overall i like Google so that’s why i though

  4. Frank
    October 19th, 2011 @ 4:55 am

    This Science Fair is a great chance for young creative peopel to prove themselfs. There are some nice projects that can be really helpfull in the future.
    The videos are great. Especially form the final event. I hope to see some nice new ideas next year.

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