Spotlight on Melanie Chow Of Mice and Medicine

Spotlight on Melanie Chow
Of Mice and Medicine

– By April Miller –

While many students spent the summer at the beach, Melanie Chow was spending nine hours a day in a lab performing bone marrow transplants in mice.

Not everyone’s idea of a good time, but the work is getting the Rye High School senior national attention and has helped her to choose a career path.

On Oct. 20, Chow was chosen as a semi-finalist in the Siemans Westinghouse competition, one of the top two high school science competitions in the world. She submitted a project focusing on bone marrow transplantation, particularly a molecule, CEACAM-1a, that if used in drug treatment for bone marrow patients, could potentially prevent life-threatening complications.

“I decided I would focus my project on bone marrow transplantation because, currently, it is one of the few cures out there,” said Chow. “Instead of chemo or radiation, which are used to kill off tumorous or cancerous cells, BMT instead essentially replaces the patient’s entire immune system, in hopes that this new immune system will be able to eradicate the cancer.”

Cancer has always been a topic of interest for Chow, who has long dreamed of being a medical doctor. “Cancer is so devastating to the patient and to his or her friends and family,” said Chow. “I think it’s even more devastating when kids have cancer, because they have so much of their lives ahead of them.”

It is because of this that she plans to become a pediatric oncologist, a doctor who treats cancer in children.

Medicine isn’t an unusual career choice in the Chow family; she has a brother working on a Ph.D. in genetics at the University of Michigan, and a brother working on an M.D. at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School.

She began the project in the summer of 2005. During that time and the summer of 2006, she worked an average of nine hours a day, five days a week. Even while school was in session, on weekends and during holidays and breaks she could be found in the lab doing some extra work.

Chow credits the RHS Science Research Program and her teacher, Dr. Jaime Zung, for helping her reach this level of success. The program is a three-year class that starts in the 10th grade. While her project was primarily lab-based, she says she spent class time working on posters and PowerPoint presentations, and being advised by Dr. Zung.

Though no stranger to science competitions, she says the Siemans Westinghouse competition is by far the most prestigious one she has entered. “Ever since I started doing science research, it has been my dream to enter this competition,” said Chow. “When I found out I made the semi-finals, I was at school and I ran around telling everyone!”

She will next submit her work to the Intel Science Talent Search and Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, the Westchester Science and Engineering Fair, and the Manhattanville Annual Science Competition.

Chow is applying to several Ivy League colleges and plans to major in English while fulfilling all pre-med requirements. Then it’s on to medical school and a career working to give other young people a future as bright as hers.