On Friday, May 16, Regeneron and Society for Science announced the top winners in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world’s largest international high school science competition.
This year there was one winner from Long Island, New York: Lilly Horowitz of Jericho High School who earned the First Place Award in Cellular and Molecular Biology Category, for her project, titled “Ack sRNAs Induce TE Silencing Histone Marks.”
For her First Place win, Lilly earned a prize in the amount of $6,000.
Lilly’s research uncovers how small RNAs in maize trigger specific chemical changes to silence jumping genes, which are known to cause cancer and neurological disorders in humans. By identifying a new gene-silencing pathway involving histone modifications, the study opens the door to developing targeted genetic therapies for diseases linked to these mobile DNA elements.
In total, more than $9 million was awarded to the finalists, who were evaluated based on their projects’ creativity, innovation and level of scientific inquiry. The competition featured nearly 1,700 young scientists from the U.S. and more than 60 countries, regions and territories across the world. For more details, please refer to the press release here.
