Inside Duke Medicine

Local student’s award-winning research started in a Duke lab

A Durham student who this week won the country’s most celebrated high school science competition began her research on colon cancer in a laboratory at Duke University.

In a gala ceremony in Washington, Shivani Sud took the $100,000 top prize in the Intel Science Talent Search for developing a “molecular signature” that may help identify which colon cancer patients face the greatest risk of having their disease recur. The work developed out of a summer project she did in the lab of Dr. Anil Potti, assistant professor of oncology and a faculty member in Duke’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy.

“It was a high risk project with a very high benefit project if it worked out,” Potti said Wednesday. “And it worked out.” The award marks the third time in four years that a local high school student who did research in a Duke lab became a finalist for in a major national science competition—and the second time one of these students claimed the top prize.

“Shivani has worked in our lab for a year and is a fantastic student,” Potti said. “She’s very motivated, and all she needed was a little guidance. We opened our lab, and she quickly became a part of our research team. I hope others will follow by example and open their labs to students so that these young people can be a part of exciting scientific discoveries.”

Sud, a senior at Jordan High School in Durham, contacted Potti in spring 2006 and asked if she could do a summer project in his lab. Potti, whose work seeks to provide physicians with new tools for predicting cancers, made national headlines this year and was selected by Discover magazine as one of the top science stories of 2006.

“I believe if someone is interested in doing research, we should give them help,” Potti said of Sud. “I gave her this project with colon cancer, and she started looking for a gene expression genotype. It was supposed to be just a summer project, but the summer ended and she wanted to continue so she started coming to the lab three days a week after school.

“Her entire project was conceived in the lab. She discussed it and did the work with others in the lab. It was a great experience.”

Although Duke labs have provided research opportunities for undergraduates for many years, it’s been unusual until recently for them to also welcome local high school students. Now, through its RISE program and other efforts, Duke supports local science students and teachers in a variety of ways—sometimes producing impressive results.

“From the standpoint of the university, this is what we’re in the business for,” said Huntington Willard, director of the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy. “If we don’t train the next generation and don’t get them excited about a career in research, we’re missing a fundamental part of what we do.

“From the student’s point of view, everyone starts this way,” Willard said. “Someone was generous and opened doors for them. There is work in science that you can’t learn in the classroom or by reading texts; you have to get your hands dirty in the lab. It’s great fun.”

—from Duke Today