Troy student recognized for medical research at national science fair

TROY — Arnav Sharma, a sophomore from International Academy East, was among the top winners at a national science fair, presenting research he believes could help patients diagnosed with ALS, a neurodegenerative disease.

The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, or ISEF, was held May 10-16 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. The event is run by the nonprofit Society for Science, based in Washington, D.C.

Eligible participants included students across the U.S. in grades nine through 12 who won a top prize at a local, regional, state or national science fair.

Sharma and his group — Aryav Das, from Indiana, and Samarth Dunakhe, from Arizona — competed in the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics category, taking first place.

Their presentation was titled, “The Novel Role of KRT Proteins as Biomarkers in the Dysregulated Neuroendocrine System of ALS for Early Diagnosis with PT150 as a Novel Multi-Target Neuroprotective Therapeutic.”

Arnav has always been interested in scientific research. He started with robotics and computer science and more recently moved into computational biology research.

“My father, he has Parkinson’s, and he’s had early onset Parkinson’s disease for nearly my entire life,” Sharma said. “Initially, me and my team … came together wanting to research Parkinson’s, but as we researched similar diseases to Parkinson’s, we discovered that ALS is a very similar disease but the effect it has on its patients is far more detrimental. Like, ALS patients have inevitable deaths typically within five years; meanwhile, Parkinson’s patients don’t have a reduced lifespan.”

In their presentation, they shared their discovery of three possible new biomarkers and proposed a potential therapeutic that could undergo lab testing.

“We believe it may have life-expanding effects for ALS patients,” Sharma said.

The research was also presented at various contests earlier this year, such as the Michigan Junior Science and Humanity Symposium and the Science and Engineering Fair of Metro Detroit.

“It felt really different to me because research is something I’ve been doing for a while, but I’ve never really been in an environment of other people who do research, besides like one-on-one conversations with my professors or graduate students,” Sharma said. “I’ve never been able to be in an environment where everyone’s constantly talking about research, talking about what they discovered, critiquing each other’s research in beneficial ways.”

For winning first place in their category, Sharma’s team received $6,000 in prize money.

“I was like in a state of not believing that I won the award for at least two days, and on the third day, I feel like it just hit me,” Sharma said. “It was like my work finally came to recognition, and all of the hours me and my team put into the project, it finally felt real.”

Sharma said he is eager to continue his research.

“I want to be part of … the movement to revolutionize the application of computer science and biology,” Sharma said.

For more information, visit www.societyforscience.org.