Two Syosset High School students were recently selected as semifinalists in INTEL's 59th Annual Science Talent Search.

David Kahne and Lisa Salzer, both seniors, have been diligently working on their respective projects for the past few years.

David Kahne entered the advanced research program at Syosset during his freshman year and his project is entitled Autoregulation of Serotonin Development: Behavioral Studies in an Autism Model.

"My project deals with autism and trying to determine what factors are involved with it during the developmental stage," said Kahne. "Basically, my theory deals with the over-expression of a certain hormone, serotonin, which is a chemical that is expressed in the brain. My theory is that if it is over-expressed it would subsequently kill itself off in the brain. That leads to a lot of the developmental deficits that are seen in autistic children," Kahne continued.

Autism is a disorder that is very close to Kahne and his family. "My mom works at a school in Syosset that deals with autistic children," said Kahne. "I volunteered with them and that is basically how everything got started and it stemmed out from there."

According to the guidelines for the INTEL program, you are not permitted to do any experimenting with animals. Kahne wrote his paper outlining the behavioral studies of his experiment and submitted that for review for INTEL, leaving out the experiments that he completed at Stony Brook during his sophomore year where he worked with rats.

Since autism is a fairly new concept Kahne found a mentor during his junior year who specialized in this disorder to assist him with his research.

"I got involved with autistic children because of my mom but I have always had interest," said Kahne. "Working with the kids first gave way to working on the scientific level with animals and things like that."

Once Kahne had completed experimenting with the animals, the rats were given to a hospital to undergo functional MRIs which were used to determine different physiological things that were going on in the brain. "What we saw behaviorally was actually happening with the chemicals in the brain. So they underwent MRIs and there was an abstract published with those findings," said Kahne.

Kahne has been involved in many other science related contests and plans to continue participating in them in the future. In the past, Kahne has won a number of awards including the SmithKline Beecham award for excellence in science research, honors recognition at the Shipley-Ronal Competition, and first place at the Syosset High School research symposium, to name a few.

Kahne's family has been very supportive through all of his research. "My mom is proud," said Kahne. "She helped me contact teachers and students. She has been really involved."

Kahne was accepted to Duke University for the fall semester and he plans on majoring in neuroscience or biology. "Duke has a research triangle along with North Carolina and North Carolina State," said Kahne. "They do a lot of research and I have a connection there to help me continue mine."

Lisa Salzer has been a member of the advanced research program at Syosset since she was in seventh grade and has devoted much time and effort to the course. Salzer became interested in the medical world over the summer leading into tenth grade when she observed an open gallbladder excision at a local hospital, which was performed by her father who is a general surgeon. This sparked the idea for her three-year (and counting) project entitled Treatment of Cholelithiasis Without Surgical Intervention.

"My project is a catheter system that I developed to treat gallbladder disease which is the formation of gallstones," said Salzer. "This disease affects 600,000 people annually, so it is very widespread."

Salzer said she thinks that her system would be considerably safer than surgical removal, less costly, less invasive and less time-consuming. "This system that I have invented enters into the gallbladder through one small incision and it instills a dissolution agent into the gallbladder which dissolves the stones within one day," explained Salzer.

Through this research project, Salzer has devised a complete catheter system that can treat human gallbladder disease by eliminating existing gallstones and providing for the future prevention of stone formation.

"I tried different catheter methods until I found something that worked," said Salzer. "Right now it is theoretically complete. The idea is done and I am in a state of patent pending."

Salzer has had patent pending status for about two months now on the invention and is currently trying to sell the idea to pharmaceutical companies with the hope that they will decide to manufacture it. "Hopefully it will become a real system that is used in hospitals in the future," said Salzer.

Besides being a recent semifinalist at INTEL, this project won Salzer the first place award for Syosset High School in tenth and eleventh grade, as well as third place in the Shipley-Ronal Science Fair and the Outstanding Award in Science Research for Syosset High School. "This (INTEL) was one of the biggest fairs so I was really happy to get recognition for this," said Salzer.

Salzer was accepted early admission to Dartmouth College for the fall semester. "I really enjoy art so I would minor in art, but I would also do something with science research or biology. Being a doctor is a possibility, but I am keeping my options open," said Salzer.

Salzer's family has also been very supportive. "My dad is happy for me, but he is also worried that if my project begins to be used in hospitals, that he may be out of a job!"

Both students value the opportunities they've had at Syosset and are looking forward to new endeavors in the future.