Science News – Winners!

A huge congratulations go to all the students who completed the BioTech Futures Challenge. This is an excellent program where students work with practicing scientists to solve a problem. We had students tackle challenges such as how to create biodegradable bandages, how to improve epipens, how to grow plants in space and how to protect astronauts from radiation.

Students worked in a variety of teams, including collaborating with North Sydney Boys High School and Sydney Grammar School. The challenge was held over a number of weeks from July to September. Students attended zoom workshops about scientific skills such as how to consider the broader societal, ethical, and environmental implications of their work or how to create a compelling and visually engaging scientific poster that captures attention and communicates their findings effectively.

After much hard work, planning and late nights, our 5 teams submitted their ideas for judging. Across Australia, 279 students competed. From those, 19 teams were chosen as finalists.

We were extremely proud when two of our five teams were selected as Finalists. Finalists had to present their work to an audience of scientists and answer specific, unseen questions about their devices, concepts and research. While it was little bit scary, our students spoke eloquently and knowledgably.

Sara Girgis (Year 9) and Pascale Otton (Year 9), finalists, said “At the symposium, we heard a really interesting talk from an AI startup creator and we learnt about how to integrate AI into many solutions in the biotechnological field. We also watched the other group’s presentations and were very inspired by their challenges and solutions. The Biotech Futures challenge was incredibly interesting and a unique learning opportunity that taught us how to problem solve and think creatively on real world issues.”

In total, only 7 prizes were awarded, and we are extremely proud to announce that one SCEGGS team was awarded a prize of $250 for Best Poster Presentation. This is an amazing result and the students should be very proud of their creative, analytical and critical thinking skills, as well as their teamwork and oral presentation skills.

It is also lovely to note that Dakota Kedzier-Hurst, a SCEGGS Old Girl, was the scientific mentor for the team that won First Place in the Symposium Presentation.

Please join me in congratulating our BioTech Challenge Team Members, who were:

Team 1, in collaboration with Sydney Grammar students:

Team 2, in collaboration with Sydney Grammar students:

Team 3, in collaboration with Sydney Grammar students:

The Finalists (invited to Present at the Symposium) were:

Team 4, in collaboration with North Sydney Boys students

The winners: Team 5 (a SCEGGS only team):

Our winning team ( Zara Perkins, Jessica Weatherall, Melody Li, Isabelle Rath-Mazzochi, Natalie Assaad from Year 10) wrote:

“Through the Biotech Futures Challenge, we were given the freedom to explore any topic we wanted with our mentor and come up with an innovative solution. We all knew we wanted to explore issues to do with space, and after researching, we learnt that one of the most significant issues limiting astronauts’ abilities to stay in space for long amounts of time, for instance the 3 months it takes to travel to Mars, is space ionising radiation.

Space ionising radiation leads to detrimental side effects for astronauts – including cancer, radiation sickness, liver failure and DNA mutations. Current solutions are limited to physical shields built into spacecraft and spacesuits, which are costly, heavy, and inefficient to produce. We looked into developing an injection that would boost the body’s natural radioprotective agents and biochemically protect them against free radicals, the harmful unstable atoms that form inside the body when exposed to ionising radiation.

Upon researching, we came across 2 radioprotective agents, Amifostine and MnSODs mimetics which have shown high efficacy rates in recent clinical trials. The mimetics bond to free radicals, preventing them from interacting with water molecules in the body, and the Amifostine transports the free radicals out of the body in the urine. By combining these two, we decided to create a nanoparticle injection so that the rate of release of the drug could be altered depending on the person.   

On Monday 14 October we presented our project at Sydney university in front of a panel of scientists. We each spoke about our project, the issues it would address, how it worked, and then were asked two questions by the panel. The presentation and preparation leading up to it was a valuable experience that allowed us to consider how we could effectively teach others about our project and share the knowledge gained throughout this process!”

The Science Department