Methacton senior a finalist in Intel contest
At 17, Janet Song, a senior at Montgomery County's Methacton High School, already has helped develop a test that she hopes can be used to detect cancer.
At 17, Janet Song, a senior at Montgomery County's Methacton High School, already has helped develop a test that she hopes can be used to detect cancer.
Song, who lives in Audubon, has a patent application pending on the process and her name on a science journal article about it.
This week, Song added to her list of honors: She was named one of only 40 national finalists in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search. The top winners will be named in March; all finalists get at least a $5,000 grant and a laptop. The top 10 contestants will share a total of $380,000 in scholarships, with $100,000 going to the winner.
"It's a great honor - I'm surprised and delighted," Song said in an interview Thursday.
Song's project, which she started working on during a summer internship at Drexel University after her freshman year in high school, involves isolating and identifying low molecular weight DNA in urine that could contain cancer biomarkers. That might lead to less invasive and less expensive cancer testing.
Song said that several people she knew, including her grandfather, had died of or were stricken by cancer, and that deepened her interest in the project.
She is headed for either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall, Song said, with plans for a career in biomedical research.
"I've always been interested in biology. It is the science that is most applicable to our lives as human beings," she said. "I enjoy studying all the mysteries we don't understand yet."
Song is also an accomplished pianist and violinist who has won honors in several piano competitions.
Robert Helm, a physics teacher at Methacton who has been Song's adviser for several of her science projects, said she "is a wonderful student - very motivated - she loves science. And she helps out with the science club, trying to get other kids interested in science fairs and projects. . . . We're really happy for her and proud of her."
Bruce Outland, who is teaching Song in advanced placement chemistry this year, said: "She rarely doesn't get a question right, which is stunning in a course like AP chemistry." Still, "she's very unpretentious - she doesn't lord it over anybody - she's just a very nice kid."
The Science Talent Search started in 1942; besides Intel Corp., it is sponsored by the nonprofit Society for Science and the Public, which promotes public interest in science. According to the society, seven former Science Talent Search finalists have won the Nobel Prize, and others have been awarded the Fields Medal, considered the highest prize for mathematics; the National Medal of Science; and MacArthur Foundation Fellowships.
Song was selected as a finalist from among 300 semifinalists who were named this year; she is the only finalist from Pennsylvania. There are three finalists from North Jersey.
