CCSD High School Students Selected for Summer Research Program

Twenty-six Cherokee County School District high school students are spending this summer as student researchers through a partnership with Georgia’s National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center!

Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute, as a Georgia Science Education Initiative’s National Cancer Institute GA YES (Youth Enjoy Science) Program site, for a second consecutive year through a School Board-approved partnership has made the student research positions available to select rising juniors and seniors.  Winship research faculty act as research mentors for the students, and, at the six-week program’s conclusion in late July, the students will present their research findings on a topic they selected.  Our School Board is laser focused on ensuring our students are learning more, growing more, and achieving more in our classrooms than they could anywhere else!

Congratulations to our students who are listed below by school along with their project focus:

CHEROKEE HIGH SCHOOL
Sadie Cohen, “Review of state cancer plans and coalitions involved in HPV-related cancer prevention”
Kavya Desai, “Gut microbiome and its role in brain health outcomes among cancer populations”
Jackson Giemzik, “Targeting oncogenic EGFR (Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor) with repurposed drugs”
Parker Duncan, “Investigating strategies to enhance the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy” 
Russell Taylor, “Isolating new CRISPR mutations in the Taiman nuclear-receptor coactivator protein”

CREEKVIEW HIGH SCHOOL
Lily Malone, “Characterizing therapeutic responses in multiple myeloma”
Madeleine Young, “Understanding risk factors for cancer development or for poor cancer outcomes”

ETOWAH HIGH SCHOL
Jacob Abdula-Amer, “Cancer survivorship research, digital health technologies, and ethical data handling”
Blessing Asabi, “Evaluating the therapeutic response to CPI-613 in head and neck cancer cells”
Victoria Caamano, “Clonal hematopoiesis in solid cancer, analyzing mouse models and genomic data from solid cancer patients”
Giselle Cazares, “Evaluate the role of transportation as a barrier to care for patients with hematologic malignancies”
Ryker Karp, “The quality of ambient clinical scribing systems – AI” 
Allegra Panga, “Augmenting T cell therapies for cancer”
Rudra Patel, “Exploring Galectin-9 in cancer”
Violet Paul, “Capturing cancer cells with immunomagnetic nanoparticles”
Daniel Stahler, “Molecular imaging studies in glioma xenograft models”

RIVER RIDGE HIGH SCHOOL
Kamren Kirklen, “Mechanistic insight of immune effector cells and cancer cells in the tumor microenvironment”
Anish Raja, “Characterization of novel oncohistones in human cancers”
Aleksandr Shiltsov, “The development of a novel liquid biopsy blood-based assay for non-invasive cancer detection and monitoring of treatment response”
Carlianne Timbol, “Identifying novel therapeutic targets in pediatric brain cancer”

SEQUOYAH HIGH SCHOOL
Dana Ko, “Epidemiology of pediatric cancer”
Hayan Lee, “Identification of immunosuppressive genes in breast cancer evasion”
Jennifer Tran, “T lymphocytes association with poor outcomes and viral infection in head and neck cancer patients”

WOODSTOCK HIGH SCHOOL
Sophia Johnson, “Understanding the lived experiences of patients with Extramammary Paget Disease”
Kyle Vest, “Role of STAT3 vs. STAT5 in sensitivity to Venetoclax in multiple myeloma”
Maya Yelundur, “Introduction to screening small molecules targeting TOP2A in lung cancer cells”

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