Session I

Session I Project Presentations (10 min. + 5 min. Q & A)

8:50 am - 9:05 am
9:10 am - 9:25 am
9:30 am - 9:45 am

Schedule

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2021
Wednesday, April 21st
8:50 AM

Covid Moonshot: Fragment Screening for SARS-CoV2 Main Protease (mPro)

Daniel Liu '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Naveena Mutharasan '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

The viral replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is particularly active early in the course of the disease, giving great value to antiviral therapeutics which hold the potential to halt further progression to the hyperinflammatory state and later stages of disease. Because antiviral therapy is currently high in the interests of the people, an internationally crowdsourced effort ... Read More

COVID-19 therapeutics from computer aided drug design

Ashwath Ramesh '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

The Covid -19 pandemic has infected over a hundred million people worldwide, and millions of people have died due to not being able to receive the proper treatment to adequately fight the sickness. As a result of the limited time of Covid-19’s existence, the COVID moonshot project has been created to assist in the development of Covid antivirals. This project ... Read More

Cyber Security Intern with the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office

Gnandeep Chintala '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

At the Treasurer’s Office, I work in the IT department to help run a Security Information and Event Manager (SIEM). This system is used to track data and security events across State Treasurer’s Office. The focus of my business project for the State Treasurer’s Office is to understand how a SIEM is a much more effective and helpful method of ... Read More

Dark Photon Phenomenology

Eva Tuecke '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

The dark photon, a non-Abelian U(1) gauge boson, is part of a system of dark matter particles called the dark sector. Dark photons can interact weakly with the Standard Model via kinetic mixing, allowing the dark photon to decay to an even multiplicity of leptons. Two possible production mechanisms exist: the SUSY portal or the Higgs portal. The generated SUSY ... Read More

Data Science with Climate Pros

Tony Martin '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

Climate Pros is a refrigeration service run from a data science-focused management using a variety of different systems, such as Watchtower. They have many consumer-focused projects where the data science results are displayed through a variety of programs that the company developed. Over the course of six months, the company provided opportunities to learn more about the intricacies of data ... Read More

Design of oral antivirals for COVID-19

Kristina Williams '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has resulted in over 119 million cases worldwide and over 2.6 million deaths as of March 2021. Remdesivir is an intravenous antiviral used to treat the virus, but there is still a need for oral antivirals for COVID-19. To find suitable molecules to be used in an antiviral medicine, SeeSAR, a drug design platform, ... Read More

Design of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors by Computer Aided Drug Design in Collaboration with the COVID Moonshot Initiative

Jack Grotke '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Ariela Asllani '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

In early December 2019, a novel coronavirus pandemic broke out in the city of Wuhan, China Hubei Province. As of the end of February 2021, nearly 114 million people have been infected worldwide, and over 513 thousand have died in the United States alone.. SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-sense, enveloped, single-stranded RNA Betacoronavirus and is the disease-causing agent for Covid-19. Of ... Read More

Designing Potential COVID-19 Therapeutics

Philip Paulson '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

As of March 9th, 2021, there have been over 117 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 2.9 million deaths. A group called COVID Moonshot started developing therapeutics for COVID-19 using Fragment Based Drug Discovery, and discovered 74 good fragments to base drugs upon. They then released this information to the public and asked medicinal chemists across the globe to send ... Read More

Developing software to characterize gel electrophoresis data

Shouri Bochetty '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

The project is focused around using and implementing image analysis techniques for analysis of Gel Electrophoresis data specifically in Alzheimer disease mice. To do so, experimentation was done with tools like watershed, graphing of intensity to quantify protein concentration in gel electrophoresis bands. The results indicate that the best quantification of protein concentrations of the gel occur at a specific ... Read More

Development of SARS-CoV-2 Therapeutics Using Computer Modeling

Pranav Patel '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

The Covid-19 pandemic-declared on January 30th, 2020-is still an ongoing and raging problem in the world. With over 117 million cases and over 2 million deaths, the coronavirus pandemic has slowed daily-life. In order to develop therapeutics to SARS-CoV-2, the COVID moonshot project was initiated. In this project, scientists from across the world come together to develop and synthesize compounds ... Read More

Effects of Eutrophication on Water Quality

Philip Yi '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

Eutrophication causes an influx of excess nutrients and detritus in fresh aquatic bodies and is known to detrimentally affect the water quality. By analyzing the effects of Eutrophication on a water body and its water quality through a span of 40 years, the effect it has on water quality can be quantified and found. In Illinois, statewide monitoring of nitrate ... Read More

Finding Compounds that Inhibit the Dengue DENV-3-NS5 Protein Using Molecular Docking

Brenna Christoffel '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Quadri Durojaiye '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Nathan Joseph '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

Dengue fever is a disease caused by any of the four related dengue viruses. It is a mosquito-borne disease that mainly occurs in tropical and subtropical regions. As of 2019, approximately 400 million cases of dengue infections occur worldwide while 96 million cases result in dengue fever. Symptoms occur around four to six days after infection and last up to ... Read More

How Diversity Affects Stability: A Look at relations Between People and Its impact on The stability of Nations

Matthew Dinwiddie '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

A multitude of literature states that conflicts and disagreements over the utilization of resources primarily occur in areas where various cultures and ethnicities collide. To see whether or not a country’s diversity directly affects its stability, three things needed to be found: The country’s ethnic diversity, the country’s cultural diversity (which includes linguistic diversity), and the country’s stability. Three data ... Read More

Investing with the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office

Storm Stern '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

The Illinois State Treasurer’s Office Invests with the state of Illinois’ $31 Billion. Since this isn’t their money, they must ensure that they do not make bad investment decisions. The treasurer’s target investments are all very safe and sustainable. We invest in both equities (AKA stocks) and debt (AKA bonds). Over the last several months, I have been conducting research ... Read More

Mathematical Modeling of Glioblastoma Multiforme

Jade Bates '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

Glioblastoma Multiforme(GBM) is the most aggressive and common type of brain cancer in adults. In this study I used a mathematical model to demonstrate the cell proliferation of GBM. The model was found by compiling data from several studies which look at the proliferative index, mitotic Index and percent of cell migration. I ran correlation analysis on the mitotic index ... Read More

Modeling COVID-19 antivirals with Computer Aided Drug Design in conjunction with the COVID Moonshot project

Avdhan Kandikattu '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

In late 2019 to early 2020, SARS-CoV-2 emerged and caused the 2019-novel-coronavirus (COVID-19) to transmit throughout the globe in a short period of time. Due to the sudden emergence of the virus, specific antiviral drugs are still in the process of being manufactured, which could be necessary for treating COVID-19 patients. To accelerate the development of antiviral drugs, the COVID ... Read More

Molecular Modeling of Hydrocarbon Solvent Interactions and Lithium-ion

Mathew Illimoottil '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

Much work goes into the creation and analysis of organic molecules that can stabilize lithium ions. Stabilization is important for ion transport in Li-ion batteries. Compounds also need to be stable across the voltage window for the battery's operation. We evaluated the potency of a few solvents in their interaction with lithium ions. We used Spartan Student v8 to model ... Read More

The Effects of Sex Education and Abortion Access on Teen Birth and Pregnancy

Natalie E. Hulseberg '22, Illinois Math and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

Teen pregnancy and birth is a widespread issue that deeply affects young girls during the most vital stages of development. It can lead to dropping out of high school – a major drawback in the United States today – and impoverishment. Fortunately, there are measures that can be taken to equip students with knowledge to avoid situations of teen pregnancy ... Read More

The LRS vacuum expectation value and the H++->WW decay channel

Archan Das '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

The doubly charged Higgs boson H++ may have a second decay channel that decays to two W bosons. Each of these bosons can decay into either lepton-neutrino pairs or quark-antiquark pairs. Using the all-lepton channel gives us a signature of four leptons and missing energy from the neutrinos, a very low-background signature. Doubly charged Higgs bosons’ decay into W bosons ... Read More

Use of Data Analytics to Spot Educational Discrimination – A Focus on Standardized Testing and Selective Enrollment Schools

Paola Padilla '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

We utilized data analytics to investigate potential inequitable practices and policies within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system that may negatively affect underrepresented and disadvantaged students. We analyzed large datasets to determine if CPS policies and practices contribute to low standardized testing performance across different schools in the district. We focused on factors that contribute to school rankings, standardized testing, ... Read More

Using Protein Ligands to Start Development of a COVID-19 Treatment

Cameron Magana '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

For over a year now, the novel virus known as SARS-CoV-2 has been causing infections throughout the world, resulting in many seriously ill patients, and even numerous deaths. A consortium called COVID Moonshot was created in response to the virus, and it aims to crowdsource designed molecules from across the world to test for potential antivirals. Through the use of ... Read More

Using the Higgs Combine Tool to Calculate Limits of the Cross Section of Doubly Charged Higgs Bosons

Nate Graf '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Karrick McGinty '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

The Higgs Combine Tool (HCT) is a tool to calculate limits and do statistical analysis on the data collected by particle detectors. We create and edit data cards and then calculate the limit on the cross-section of the production of a particle, given a background estimate, using a Bayesian technique. We then used the HCT to create graphs to show ... Read More

Utilizing Computational Chemistry to Crowdsource a Treatment for SARS-CoV-2

Quinn Verdeyen '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

8:50 AM - 9:05 AM

In December 2019, a novel coronavirus was detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei Province. Nearly affecting all facets of life in China, this virus soon spread to the rest of the world, and on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared a worldwide pandemic for SARS-CoV-2. Due to this unprecedented situation, medical researchers were left racing to ... Read More

9:10 AM

A Search for Inhibitors of HGXPRT Using 3D Molecular Docking

Akanksha Garg '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Rachna Gupta '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Hannah Xu '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Malaria is a bloodborne disease primarily spread by mosquitoes. In 2019, there were an estimated 229 million cases of malaria worldwide, many of which were in third-world countries. Even though there are drugs that can combat malaria, they are not accessible to most consumers in need because of their high cost and, even if a consumer can access these drugs, ... Read More

Analysis of Compounds Designed from Fragment #x0398 for SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease

Morgan Johnson '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Samantha Gong '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

With the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for treatments has become one of the world’s top priorities. At the time that we started this project, there were no approved treatments or vaccines to treat the virus, so our project focused on developing an antiviral for COVID-19. Using Computer Aided Drug Design programs called SeeSar and Swiss ADME, we designed new ... Read More

Block Bins Website Development

Seo Yeon Cho '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Wesley Matthews '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Tyler Smith '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Block Bins LLC is a Chicago-based composting company that offers customers accessible and inexpensive organic waste recycling options. Customers subscribe for access to shared recycling bins to drop off their compost which is collected on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis. For customers to use this service, they must first register through the Block Bins website where they may enter ... Read More

Creating High-Eta Dark Photons

Hector Ibarra '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Nathan Kilmer '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

We are using a Monte Carlo simulation to generate particle collision events which result in lepton jets. By observing the resulting lepton jets, we are able to observe the characteristics of the original collisions. The goal of these simulations is to observe evidence of a theoretical particle, the dark photon. The dark photon resides in the dark sector, and is ... Read More

Design and Experimental Study of Bio-Inspired Surgical Needle

Rosario Picone '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Brain biopsy procedures are vulnerable to complications such as tissue scarring, damage, inflammation, and deflection caused by surgical needles. A large insertion force is found in the incompatibilities with tissue properties and needle geometry design, which in return causes unintended complications to the patient. An insect’s stinger is able to penetrate a wide array of tissues with minimal pain due ... Read More

Designing Potential COVID Therapeutics Through Computer Aided Drug Design

Heldanna Solomon '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

The COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely damaging to society and much work has been done to develop vaccines and therapeutics to prevent more such damage. The COVID Moonshot project crowdsources compound designs from worldwide sources for development into therapeutics. In order to send compounds of our own to contribute to the project, we selected the starting fragment x0995 (PDB: 5RF3) ... Read More

Developing a Model for Non-Invasive Detection of Gliomas Using MicroRNA Biomarkers

Delicia Chen '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Current methods of diagnosing brain tumors often include imaging tests accompanied by a biopsy involving the surgical removal of a tissue sample to determine if the tumor is cancerous. However, one area of non-invasive cancer detection that is currently undergoing research and shows great diagnostic potential are the presence of microRNA biomarkers in the blood to predict and diagnose a ... Read More

Effect of 3-D Printable Scaffolds Hyperelastic Bone and Fluffy-PLG on Bone and Cartilage Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Shreya Mahesh '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Apurva Reddy '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Ranging from cancerous infections to severe fractures, insults to osseous tissue has the propensity to yield significant debilitative effects in an individual. Current treatments present numerous risks such as donor site morbidity and infection. Thus, bone tissue engineering serves as a promising alternative to combat the shortcomings of allograft and xenograft implementation. Fluffy-PLG is an ultraporous (>95%) polylacde-co-glycolide (PLG) copolymer ... Read More

Effect of a loss of WRC formation on autistic behavior modulation

Akul Prakash '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

It has been determined that pathological Wave Regulatory Complex (WRC) variants can result in intellectual disability with autistic features and seizures. The WRC is a five-protein complex consisting of WAVE1, CYFIP1, ABI2, NAP1, and HSPC300. The WRC mediates interactions of membrane receptors with the actin cytoskeleton to regulate crucial developmental steps such as neural adhesion and migration. The deletion of ... Read More

Efficiencies for Dark Lepton Triggers

Ari Fishkin '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Since dark photons produce lepton jets with low muon energies, they are poorly accepted by the existing single muon and dimuon triggers because existing triggers fail to accept muons with low energies. To accept more dark photon events, two tri-muon triggers were created, one being a level one trigger and the other being a high-level trigger, with the level one ... Read More

Equine Therapy

Abhi Thati '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Equine therapy is the form of therapy that utilizes equestrian mammals to aid in a being’s physical, emotional, and mental development. Historically, the treatment improves and enhances the cognitive development of humans diagnosed with mental illnesses such as autism, cerebral palsy, and behavioral issues, among various mental health issues. Usually, individuals, especially ones that are not as far along in ... Read More

Influence of Felon Reenfranchisement on Party Success in State Elections

Isabella Foes '21, Dr. Joseph T. Golab; Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

While America’s 2020 General Election brought public scrutiny to voting rights, felon disenfranchisement remains virtually unchanged. With disparities in state priorities and political affiliations, different regions of the country

are in varying stages of enfranchising felons and face varying hindrances (ACLU 2020).

This study examines political motive of politicians rushing to reenfranchise. The scope was defined as the five elections ... Read More

Lepton-Jet Background

Brady Williams '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

We analyzed the contribution of potential backgrounds for lepton-jets created from the decay of dark photons. Lepton-jets are identified by the presence of at least two collimated leptons, but these jets may have significant pion contamination. Therefore, the primary lepton-jet backgrounds come from Standard Model (SM) processes that happen to contain two leptons that are close enough to fake a ... Read More

Modeling of The Oxygen Evolving Complex

Resh Mukherjee '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Coral reefs are an essential part of the ocean ecosystem, providing a rich habitat that supports many diverse lifeforms. Further, these reefs are important economically as they are a major draw for tourists around the world; their destruction could prove catastrophic. A rise in ocean temperatures has been linked with the bleaching of coral reefs. More specifically the temperature rise ... Read More

Plausibility of Using Solar Energy for Water Purification

Shawn Coutinho '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Water purification has been one of the permeating questions for humanity throughout history as humans need to consume fresh water to satisfy their bodily needs hasn’t matched up well with the type of water present on Earth in large quantities. In recent years, experiments have been conducted as far as efficient automation of the water purification process goes with varying ... Read More

Principles and Mechanics of Nanomedicine in Aging

Brandon Park '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Nanomedicine has been continuing to develop with many advances in the biomedical field. It aims to provide novel tools for diagnosis and treatments for patients with age-related diseases, such as cancer, atherosclerosis, insulin resistance, and various cardio-metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases. Despite recent advances, there is still a lack of effective treatments to prevent age-related diseases. Nanomedicine has the capability to ... Read More

Testing CO2 assimilation of Various Cultivars of Maize over Varying Temperature Levels and Light Intensities

Akhil Vytla '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Nathan Yuan '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Photosynthesis is one of the most sensitive functions in plants: changes in temperature, or CO2 concentration can drastically affect the efficiency of the reaction. Rubisco activase (RCA) is an important activator for Rubisco, the enzyme responsible for the carbon fixation during photosynthesis. RCA is also very sensitive to high temperature t., It is yet unknown if certain cultivars of maize ... Read More

The Correlation Between Socioeconomic and Environmental Factors on Life Expectancy

Kaylee Zhou '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Awareness about the disparity between living in urban versus rural areas is essential when considering the parameters that influence one's longevity. There are many factors that can impact an individuals' health, such as proximity to services, access to nature, occupation opportunities, and more. It is important to understand how living in areas classified as urban, suburban, and rural can offer ... Read More

The Relationship Between COVID-19 Death Rates and Socioeconomic Status

Akash Basavaraju '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, many have wondered if COVID-19 disproportionately affects minorities and low-income individuals. Studies have shown that minorities, especially Black and Latino, and low-income groups do in fact have higher COVID-19 transmission rates compared to White Americans. However, not much research has been conducted regarding the relationship between COVID-19 death rates and income ... Read More

The role of race, socioeconomic status, and Affirmative Action in college

Temi Ijisesan '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

My SIR project is concentrated on the effectiveness of Affirmative Action in College Enrollment and how it disproportionally disadvantages certain socioeconomic demographics in the U.S. It addresses the history of Affirmative Action and its role in the College Admissions process. This includes a chronological overview of major cases such as Brown vs. Board of Education to Fisher v. University of ... Read More

Use of Data Analytics to Spot Educational Discrimination – Part II -A Focus on The Effect of Discipline on Test Scores

Disha Dureja '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

We used data analytics to find potential inequities within Chicago Public Schools (CPS) policies that negatively affect marginalized groups. Currently, there is inequity with the CPS system: there is a lack of educational opportunities for students of color and students of lower socioeconomic status. There is also an issue of heavy police involvement in schools through school resource officers (SROs). ... Read More

Water Quality Data Collection through mWater Software

Erin Yoo '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Around the world, communities aim to make water quality data publicly accessible in order to help community members recognize how local water supplies may be impacting their health and environment. This project assists with this goal by taking on the critical tasks of collecting, storing, managing, analyzing, and publishing water quality data from the Kishwaukee River Water Quality Assessment Study ... Read More

Web Development using GitHub

Harshini Musku '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:10 AM - 9:25 AM

Impulse Institution is an educational organization designed for 10th to 12th graders in India to provide a holistic education. The main focus of the business project was to rebuild the website as the previous one was hacked multiple times in the summer of 2020. The website’s platform changed from WordPress to GitHub. GitHub is used for hosting software development. GitHub ... Read More

9:30 AM

A Machine Learning Approach to Predict Schizophrenia from SNP-Array Based Genomic Data

Chandra Gangavarapu '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Although the use of machine learning for disease detection has seen a sharp increase within the past several years, diagnostic methods for mental illnesses such as schizophrenia remain largely qualitative. This project aims to introduce a data-driven diagnosis by using genomic wide array data to predict schizophrenia. Various machine learning models using Python and TensorFlow were run on a dataset ... Read More

An econometric analysis of suburban park access in the United States

Patrick Hultquist '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

This project examines the correlation between economic income and park availability for suburban areas of the United States. As economic differences become more drastic, the effects of income on lives becomes increasingly important, especially for less considered, but still important and appreciated aspects of life, like park accessibility. To do this, this project uses the R programming language, data gathered ... Read More

Blabl Content Creation and Market Research

Mark Ying '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Blabl is an app that helps kids practice their speech through stories that are child-oriented and fun as they move through levels and maps in the game. The app also has an online dashboard that allows parents and speech language pathologists (SLP’s) to monitor and stay informed with their child’s performance. Building upon previous market research and tasks, this project’s ... Read More

COVID Moonshot Computer-Aided Drug Design of SARS-CoV-2 Oral Antivirals

Saachi Kumar '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Ruchi Patel '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Through this study, ten compounds that could potentially serve as an oral antiviral for the SARS-CoV-2 virus have been submitted to the crowdsourced COVID Moonshot initiative for synthesis and lab testing. The SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak has caused the spread of COVID-19, resulting in 2.6 million deaths worldwide since January 2020 as of March 2021. Although the availability of the Pfizer ... Read More

Determining the Physiological Effects of Opioid Addiction through the Application of Spared Nerve Injury Model of Neuropathic Pain on the Morphine Self-Administration Rodent Model

Hiteshi Patel '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

The aim of this project is to determine whether morphine reinforcement and seeking behavior in enhanced in SNI mice trained to self-administer morphine. Testing was completed by examining behavioral approaches of both SNI and sham lesioned mice, with a focus in MSA. Mice were tested 2 months after catheter implantation, with active doses of 0.1/mg/kg/infusion. An FR1, 13 days training ... Read More

Effect of Knockdown Treatments on Keratinocyte Differentiation

Rohit Katakam '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Margaret Wei '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Keratinocytes are structures in the human epidermis that highlight the differences between the basal and surface layers of the skin. In a small area, all stages of cell differentiation can be observed in a single keratinocyte sample. The treatments used were siControl Dharamcon, siControl Nitrogen, siNPM1, siRPA194, and siUTP4. For this reason, keratinocytes were used to analyze the changes in ... Read More

Expected production cross sections for doubly charged Higgs bosons in photon collisions

Balaji Balachandran '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Alexander Zhang '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

We present the results of our analysis of the expected production cross sections for doubly charged Higgs bosons in photon-photon collisions. We use PYTHIA software to generate collision events and calculate cross sections under a variety of conditions. This analysis allows us to study the possible prospects of photon-photon colliders, which have been a topic of interest among physicists for ... Read More

How Glioblastoma Stem-like Cells cause Brain Cancer

Rujuta Durwas '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM, is a malevolent tumor that affects the spine and brain. It tends to create pressure and spreads rather quickly through the body. GBM holds a subset of cells called glioblastoma stem-like cells (GSCs). Those cells lead to tumor recurrence and are responsible for the aggressiveness, recurrence and resistance to treatments of GBM. Cancer stem cells arise ... Read More

Investigation of Student Inquiry and Research through Media

Francesca D. Dumitrescu '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

At the Illinois Math and Science Academy, almost everyone is familiar with the Student Inquiry and Research program (SIR). This program allows students to communicate with mentors and conduct research on topics ranging from neuroscience to psychology. However, this program had to go through many changes, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in distance learning for the 2020-2021 academic ... Read More

Limit setting and coverage checks in a search for contact interactions

Ysabel Guan '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

When analyzing data in particle physics there are two different statistical lenses that people use: Bayesian and frequentist. The core of Bayesian statistics is the subjective belief that a certain result is true or falls within a certain interval while the core of frequentist statistics is the frequency, or amount of times, that the experiments show a result to be ... Read More

Motor Unit Firing Pattern Variation between the Upper and Lower Limbs in Humans

Saicharan Voora '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

The basic unit for motor control is the motor unit which consists of the motor neuron, its axon, the muscle fibers, the axon innervates in the target muscle. Due to the one-to-one spike ratio between motor neurons and the muscle fibers they innervate, motor unit firing patterns can be easily measured to better understand motor control mechanisms and the structure ... Read More

Quantification of TDP-43 inclusions in images of neurons

Jesse Park '23, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Ju-Won Park '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) accumulates in the neurons and glia and has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases like frontotemporal dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Alzheimer’s disease. The project aims to quantify immunostaining signals of TDP inclusions for the nuclear position, type of staining patterns (homogeneous or granular/punctate), and subcellular distribution patterns in neurons. A library of images of ... Read More

Racial, Gender, and Socioeconomic Diversity as Factors of Academic Success In Post-Secondary Institutions

Eunice Kim '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

This paper recapitulates a project that investigates racial, gender, and socioeconomic diversity as factors of academic success in the largest 4-year colleges in each state. By doing so, the project strives to change public perceptions about the role that diversity plays in college admissions. If direct correlations are found, the resulting inferences could have great influence over the future of ... Read More

Regulation of the Rubisco activase isoforms in Zea mays through Mg2+ and concentration under temperature constraints

Amanda Chen '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Audrey Si '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Over the next century, higher temperatures perpetuated by global warming influence crop production in climate-change-induced yield loss. The enzyme Rubisco activase (RCA) is a key protein that removes inhibitors from Rubisco, the enzyme responsible for the carbon dioxide fixation during photosynthesis. High temperatures impede RCA’s efficiency and in turn slow down the net rate of photosynthesis. In maize, two isoforms ... Read More

Regulation of Vitamin D deficiency within Child PANDAS patients

Gabriel Delgado, '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Numerous studies from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) have proven that there is an association between autoimmunity regulation and Vitamin D deficiency. Consequently, it has been theorized that improvement of Vitamin D levels will also help moderate autoimmunity levels. However, there are not many studies, if any, on the regulation of the PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated ... Read More

Research and analysis of compounds designed to aid in treatment for SARS-CoV-2

Elizabeth Alcala '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Nadia Ludwig '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Sabrina Zhang '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

At the beginning of the school year in August 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was still ongoing, resulting in a surge of formulating treatments for the disease. In early 2020, a project called COVID Moonshot was launched in the hopes of scientists sharing their findings and synthesizing compounds to formulate COVID therapeutics. As student researchers, compounds were designed along with other ... Read More

Restructuring CIAnalysis Code

Sameer Komoravolu '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Liam Nelson '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Produce Efficient Histograms to display particle data.

We have restructured parts of a common code base to make it easier and more efficient for IMSA researchers to perform systematic studies. For one, the existing histogram pathing results in connection errors when the researcher tries to view the root file. We fixed this, and we continued to change the code to ... Read More

Sex-Specific Changes in Brain Amyloidosis and Microglia Phenotype in Germ-Free APPPS1-21 Alzheimer’s Transgenic Mice

Siva Nalabothu '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Recent evidence suggests that gut microbiota play a critical role in regulating innate immunity and influencing brain function. Clinical studies revealed an association between brain amyloidosis and the presence of pathogenic bacteria in the gut of cognitively impaired patients. Our previous study concluded that an ABX-perturbed microbiome has selective, sex-specific influences on brain amyloid (Abeta) amyloidosis and microglial homeostasis. The ... Read More

The Effect of Accessibility to Education during COVID-19 on Student Success

Natali Chung '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

This study seeks to find if there is a correlation between accessibility to education during the COVID-19 pandemic and student academic success. As COVID-19 continues to reach across the nation, causing many school districts to turn to distance learning. It is crucial that educational systems understand how the variability of access to quality education while at home can affect students ... Read More

Use of Data Analytics to Spot Educational Discrimination – Part III - A Focus on Demographics and COVID-19 Data

Oliver Ni '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the nation’s third largest school district and serves over 350,000 students within the city limits of Chicago. Yet, CPS draws scrutiny over its treatment of marginalized minority students as well as vast discrepancies in overall school performances. In order to spot potential inequities within the CPS system, we performed statistical analyses on publicly-available data and ... Read More

Water Purification for the Developing World

Grace Smith '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Arthur Wang '21, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

In many communities around the world, people have no option but to drink from contaminated water sources, resulting in 3.4 million deaths annually. Our goal was to reduce this number by creating filters to eliminate 99.9% of bacteria while maintaining a 2L/hr filtration rate to sustain a family in the developing world. Sections of white pine boughs, approximately 2.5-4 cm ... Read More

Web Development and Marketing with MASA.

Moniica Narciso '22, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Midwest Allergy Sinus Asthma S.C. is a medical office (healthcare company) located in Springfield, IL. and Normal, IL which specializes in allergy and immunology medicine. Services include environmental and food allergy testing, allergy action plans, asthma care, sinusitis treatment, immunology, treatment for hives, and contact dermatitis. Up-to-date information is also found on their website, asthma2.com. The main focus of this ... Read More