2 Mayo High School students win honors for taking on world problems

Their projects may have been on completely separate topics, but two Rochester students have been recognized recently for their efforts tackling large problems.

Jennifer Oettinger and Christine Song, both of Mayo High School, placed in the North Central Regional Junior Science & Humanities Symposium.

Oettinger placed third for her project "Where the Rubber Meets the Road: The Development of an Innovative, Reusable and Energy-Efficient Filter for Microplastics Created Through Tire Wear."

Song placed fourth for her project: "Cure of Breast Cancer -- Year 4: The First Discovery of New Target Therapy for Aggressive Hormonal Breast Cancer using Clinical Database and 3D Model."

The symposium included 80 students from Minnesota and both the Dakotas. Both Oettinger and Song's projects are entered into the April 14-17 national symposium.

Oettinger found a large problem that not many people think of. And then, she found a way to do something about it: Tire-based plastic waste. According to her research, as much as 28% of the microplastic waste in the ocean comes from rubber tires. It also makes up "3% to 7% of the particulate matter in the air."

“I first try to identify some global issue -- some giant problem -- and then really look down and see what’s the specific aspect of this that’s in my capability to do something about,” Oettinger said.

For this particular problem, she created an electrostatic filter device that could be mounted behind a tire to catch the loose plastics coming off of it. After testing it, she found that it can be as much as 87% effective.

In it's current form, the device is a wooden structure that has a number of aluminum sheets inside, connected to batteries. When the plastic particles first enter the device, they pick up a negative charge. Toward the back of the device, there is a positive charge, causing the negatively charged particles to stick to the filter.

To arrive at that result, she bought a lawnmower tire. She hooked the tire up to a drill press to make it spin and then used a file to simulate road wear. She measured how many plastic particles were being emitted from that. Then, she put her filter behind the tire to see how much that reduced the emission of the plastic particles.

Oettinger's research paper recognizes the project "could be improved and expanded upon in the future in several ways."

Still, it's rewarding for Oettinger to see success in the initial design and testing of the product.

"To be able to say 'I've looked at this global problem of pollution, I've identified the subset that I want to solve,' and then to actually have some success in addressing this problem, was really exciting as a project," she said.

Although she's only a sophomore in high school, Song has been researching breast cancer for the past four years. It has been time well spent in and of itself, but it's also getting her ready for her future since she hopes to become a medical oncologist.

The root of her interest started close to home. It started with a desire to be able to help her mom.

"As I studied more and more, I think the impact of other stories and other patients gradually grew on me," Song said. "I started to realize that although my mom was a part of that community, there are millions of other women, and even men, who get breast cancer... I really wanted to help these people."

Song says there are three main takeaways from her most recent research project. Among those three, she says the one that's probably the most important is the discovery of a specific inhibitor that "might be able to become the first potential targeted treatment" for a subtype of breast cancer.

Her 35-page paper is filled with charts, diagrams, references and her own research. It was a long process. Part of it included analyzing more than 53,000 genes. The file was so large it crashed Song's computer.

Another part of the process included cellular experiments in the lab. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, she had to do most of her lab work in the evenings or at night, at times going past midnight. In some ways that was helpful since there were fewer people around, and she could communicate more with the researcher who was helping her.

As successful as her research has been, she also knows it's just one more step in a long journey.

"Although I am proud of where I am today, I feel like there's still a lot more out there that I could potentially be able to research and potentially be able to study," Song said.