On December 10th, 2018, the entire Magnet senior class presented their summer internship work and projects to the Camas School District school board and community at the Zellerbach Administration Center. After the poster fair, staff, students, and community convened for the regular school board meeting to hear formal presentations of internships by seniors Abigail Jiang and Christopher Xia.
Ms. Jiang, who just completed her third year of work on this topic in the labs at Washington State University Vancouver, continued her work with Dr. Allison Coffin where she studied Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) commonly caused by exposure to excessive noise from occupational or recreational sources. In her own words, “Sensory hair cells are damaged by this acoustic trauma, and NIHL is permanent in humans. One known mechanism of noise-induced hair cell damage is oxidative stress and the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in hair cells.” The overall aim of her project was “to identify antioxidant compounds that attenuate noise-induced hair cell damage by limiting ROS production, utilizing zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model organism.” The findings of her study, due to be published in the near future, are summarized here: Exploring Antioxidant Drug Therapies for Noise-Induced Hearing Loss
Mr. Xia worked on a team at CID Bioscience in Camas, WA., to control and effectively measure ethylene levels affecting avocado ripening. According to Xia, “As avocados ripen, they develop an index of dry matter, which is
regulated in the market. It is inconvenient to analytically determine dry matter of avocados, so I worked to help develop instruments that easily measure ethylene and dry matter, which gives avocado farmers greater efficiency in their avocado production.” See his full write up of the experience and process here: Controlling Ethylene and Ripening Avocados
Congratulations, seniors, on completing your internships and moving one step closer to graduation!
Cheers!
Mr. Greene
