Saratoga High School Student Alissa Zhang Wins Intel Science Contest

Saratoga High School Alissa Zhang is among the top 10 winners announced at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Tuesday evening for the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search contest.

They were among 40 seniors who were chosen as finalists from 1,800 students from 44 states, all of whom were competing for more than $1.25 million in scholarship prize money from the Intel Foundation.

The first-place winner, who will receive a four-year, $100,000 scholarship, is Nithin Tumma of Fort Gratiot, MI. Tumma won for his research, which Intel officials said could lead to more effective and less toxic breast cancer treatments.

Zhang won a $20,000 scholarship and took ninth place in the nationwide contest.

The other Bay Area winner was Fengning 'David' Ding, who hails from Albany, in Alameda County, and is a student of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. He came in fourth place and received a $40,000 scholarship for his work in representation theory of infinitesimal Cherednik algebras.

Zhang gained a spot in the final 40 for a project that sought alternatives to finger-pricking for tests that monitor diabetes patients, Saratoga High School Principal Jeff Anderson said.

"It's real, it's not an abstract project," Anderson said.

The test could address the difficulties in monitoring diabetic children who are scared of needles.

Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District Superintendent Bob Mistele said the achievement represents a great honor for Alissa.

"We are proud and thrilled for her.  She is an outstanding student at Saratoga High, both academically and as a school citizen. Her project reflects the culture of innovative thinking and commitment to 'doing one’s best' that we hope all our students feel. Congratulations to Alissa and her family," said Mistele.   

Similarly, Board of Education President Cynthia Chang said: "We are extremely happy for her well-deserving recognition."

Two more Bay Area high school seniors were among the 40 finalists and will receive a scholarship of at least $7,500.

• , of in Palo Alto, was chosen for his work in bioinformatics and genomics. His entry was titled "A Novel Protein Translation Kinetics Model Supports the Ribosomal Pause Theory."
• Saurabh Sharan, of Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, was chosen for his computer science project, "Parameter Free Graph Based Nuclear Segmentation in Cellular Images Using Morphological Cues."

Pan was chosen for his work in bioinformatics and genomics. His entry was titled "A Novel Protein Translation Kinetics Model Supports the Ribosomal Pause Theory." Pan did not place in the top 10, but was recognized on stage as a top-40 finalist in the talent search.

His project shed light into the role that pauses play in the folding of proteins. Proteins have been shown to fold into specific shapes, but how they manage to do this successfully and efficiently remains unknown. One idea has suggested that this is fascilitated by slowing translation.

The contest has been held for 70 years, and Intel has sponsored it for the past 13 years.

—Bay City News contributed to this report.