MHS Senior Amy Chen Siemens Semifinalist

Millburn High School senior Amy Chen is a semifinalist in this year’s Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.

She is one of 318 students named semifinalists, out of a record number of 1,348 projects that were entered this year. Three other Millburn seniors—Julie Devinsky. Ben Lieber and Caroline Tan—also submitted papers.

Chen’s project, entitled "Gating of a Cyclic Nucleotide-Modulated KcsA-MloK1 Ion Channel Chimera," studies a complex ion channel.

“Ion channels are essential to various physiological processes such as nerve signaling and heartbeat," Chen said in a press release. "They are proteins embedded in cell membranes that allow ions to flow in and out of cells. They can be opened and closed, or gated, by various stimuli. Many of these channels, however, are complex and difficult to study. I made a new ion channel by combining parts of a well-studied ion channel with parts of a very important, but very complex ion channel. This new combination will help in the study of that complex ion channel.”

Chen is a student of Paul Citrin in the Millburn High School Science Research course, a three-year program that begins in the sophomore year. It is designed to offer students an opportunity to perform scientific research and participate in the community of science research and scholarship as part of their high school experience. After identifying a research topic, and obtaining a mentor at an outside university or research lab, students must write a 20-page scientific paper and enter their research into local, state and/or national competitions.

“Because this competition focuses on the 'hard' sciences, and does not pull from as large a field as some of the other well-known science competitions, it is an impressive feat to make it to the semi-finalist round, especially in a year when the number of entries jumped by 12 percent over last year,” Citrin said in the press release.

According to the Siemens Web site, The Siemens Competition is the nation’s premier science research competition for high school students. The annual competition, administered by the College Board awards college scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $100,000 in individual and team categories.