Fairview High School Student State Qualifier for Science Project

Grant Hom

Fairview High School Student State Qualifier for Science Project
Courtesy of Fairview Parks City Schools

Fairview High Schoolstudent, Grant Hom, was a state finalist for his exceptional science fair project. The title of his project this year was an “An in Vitro Model of Age-Related Cataract for Identification of Oxidation Sites in Lens Proteins and Development of Cataract Resistant Eye Lenses.”

In a nutshell, the first portion of my project involved creating a model of the eye disease known as cataracts with mouse lenses based on the idea that cataracts (a cloudiness of the lens) form as result of protein deformation. This model was then used to identify specific amino acid sites (of the deformed protein) that could be key to cataract formation. Future work with his project would be to determine if these amino acid sites, when mutated, significantly delay cataract formation. This knowledge could potentially lead to the development of an implantable biological cataract-resistant lens. This would be beneficial to society as over 20 million Americans, particularly the elderly population, suffer from cataracts.

Grant became interested in science fairs through my seventh grade science teacher Mrs. Schlesinger. Specifically, he became involved with this project by contacting the Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine after narrowing my research interest to cataracts.  Dr. Vincent Monnier and Dr. Xingjun Fan of the CWRU School of Medicine agreed to be my mentors and guided me throughout my work on this project. 

The project required hard work.  He spent at least 100 hours reading research articles on the topic and creating a display board and at least 100 hours working on the project at the CWRU medical school’s research facility.  The project gave him the opportunity to work with top international medical researchers and the most advance lab equipment in the world.  Also, he extracted lenses from hundreds of eyeballs of special mice for my project.

Grant stated, "I competed in a series of science fairs and presentations during the past three months.  These events required me to give a presentation of my project with the assistance of a display board and included a period when judges could then ask questions about my project. I attended the following events with this project":

1. The Northeast Ohio Science and Engineering Fair held at John Carroll University (sponsored by John Carroll and Cleveland State University) – 600 participants.  I won 1st place in the Grades 9-10 medicine category and cash prizes.  See www.neosef.org.

2. District 5 Science Fair (sponsored by and held at the University of Akron) – 250 participants.  This fair allowed me to move onto the State Science Fair.

3. The Ohio Academy of Science State Science Fair (sponsored by and held at The Ohio State University) -1200 participants.  The judges gave me a perfect score.  See http://www.ohiosci.org/ssd.htm
The Case Western Reserve Research ShowCASE where university researchers display their work.

He would like to thank my parents for the support they have given to me on this project. Furthermore, he encourages everyone to participate in a science fair individually or as a team.  It improves one’s ability to think independently and “like a scientist.”  Finally, it provides a new perspective on science that would be difficult to learn in a normal school setting and provides an opportunity to learn what science researchers do.