Sisters win science awards
By NADIA MARIA SMITH
CS&T Staff Writer
Villa Joseph Marie High School for Girls has every reason to rave about two students who won three awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s largest pre-college science competition.
Sisters Molly and Bernadette Hritzo were among 1,557 finalists from 51 countries who made their way to Atlanta, Ga., last month to exhibit projects tackling issues of global concern. They represented millions of students who entered local science fairs in the hopes of competing at the international level.
Molly, a graduating senior, was awarded the third place Grand Award in the Cellular and Molecular Biology category for her work on the immune response in celiac disease.
Molly, her three younger sisters and her mother all have celiac disease, an autoimmune disease that destroys the lining of the small intestine in response to gluten introduced into the body in food.
Molly’s research focused on identifying a certain population of cells that she believed to be a specific type of plasma cells.
“I was able to show that these cells were indeed plasma cells, which was something entirely novel because no one in research had shown this before,” she said. “Celiac patients have a high concentration of this type of plasma cells.”
Further investigation of her discovery could lead to a better understanding of an autoimmune mechanism, which in turn could result in better ways to treat the symptoms of celiac disease, or even find a cure.
Molly worked under the mentorship and supervision of Frank Lynch, the vice president of Qualtek Molecular Laboratories in Newtown. She will be attending the University of Scranton in the fall to pursue a double degree in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology. She hopes to become a pediatric gastroenterologist and biochemical or biomedical researcher.
“I’ve seen many children suffering with celiac and Crohn’s disease, which is related,” she said. “I’d like to be able to help them not only as a doctor but also as a researcher. That is what I want to dedicate my life to.”
Bernadette, a ninth-grader, received the fourth place Grand Award in Animal Sciences category for her novel work on marine sponges. In addition, the United States Army awarded Bernadette the first place Special Award in her competition category.
For her project, she set out to test whether a type of marine sponge she had obtained from the Gulf of Mexico would produce a type of antibiotic that other sponges are known to have produced. If so, would that natural antibiotic inhibit the growth of marine bacteria or infections such as e.coli or staphylococcus epidermidis, also known as a staph infection?
She discovered that the marine sponges from Mexico did have antibiotic properties that inhibited the growth of marine and staph bacteria.
“The importance of this project is that new bacteria are developing resistance to the established antibiotics, so I hope that with further research they could discover that these marine sponges could provide new antibiotics to fight MRSA, which is a resistant staph infection that can kill you,” Bernadette said. “I really believe that the ocean and the compounds from the sea have the potential to cure some medical problems … so I really wanted to research this.”
Bernadette was mentored by Lois Tyburski, her biology teacher.
The girls credit their parents, both engineers, and their uncles who are also in science fields, for being advocates of science “and showing us how fun and cool it is,” Molly said. They also credit their mentors and teachers at Villa Joseph Marie, who “make science fun,” Molly added. “In the Villa there are so many girls who love the sciences and go into scientific fields because of the wonderful teachers.”
But most importantly they thank God and their faith which gives them the inspiration and the encouragement they need to continue their research even when it becomes frustrating, Bernadette said.
“One of the core values that have been taught to [us] is that we are here to know, love and serve God and to love our neighbor,” Molly said. “That has been [our] drive — to serve others and in doing so, serve God.”
CS&T staff writer Nadia Maria Smith may be reached at npozo@adphila.org or (215) 965-4614.