Science fair project: lung cancer

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Haarini
Posts: 21
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 7:22 pm
Occupation: Student

Science fair project: lung cancer

Post by Haarini »

Hello Mr. or Ms. Science expert,

First of all, I would like to wish you a happy New Year. My name is Haarini and I'm in grade 7. I am willing to participate in the York Region Science and Technology Fair. My topic for this year's project is going to be based on lung cancer and I found an article that was related to my topic. This article was really intriguing and I really would like this to be the topic of my science project. However, the medical terminology is really complex so I would like you to read it through and maybe give a simplified synopsis of the article. I thought this article was really intriguing because I didn't know that a therapeutic substance like this really existed. I would like to thank you very much for supporting me in my science project. The link of the article is found below:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4470473/

Regards,
Haarini
PharmaMan
Expert
Posts: 153
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:45 pm
Occupation: Biomedical Sciences Graduate
Project Question: Registration as an Expert
Project Due Date: N/A
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Re: Science fair project: lung cancer

Post by PharmaMan »

Hi Haarini,

This looks like a very interesting article, and this field of research into targeting apoptotic proteins is very attractive in cancer therapy. This type of article is a university-level research paper, so I give you a lot of credit for trying to tackle it! I would suggest that if you want to gain a deeper understanding of this type of research (or this article in particular), I would recommend that you do a little bit of research yourself into lung cancer, apoptosis, and some general ways to induce apoptosis in cancer cells.

This way, you will be able to understand more as you read other papers, as opposed to us just summarizing this one. If you would like, I'd like to hear what you get from various points in this article. If you have specific questions, I would be more than happy to answer questions that you have about it.

Best,
Pharma
allisontu
Former Student Expert
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2016 5:34 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Science fair project: lung cancer

Post by allisontu »

Hi Haarini,

I agree with PharmaMan, you might want to do a little background research before tackling this topic, since this level of research can get very complicated. You might want to set up a meeting with a cancer researcher from a university near you. To do this, go to a nearby university's website, and find their list of faculty. Then, look for faculty members who conduct research in the field of lung cancer. I would write each person who's researching a relevant topic an email, including your name, details about your interest in the field, and ask to set up a meeting to discuss background information about the topic, and research questions that would be feasible for you to do your science project on.

Hope this helps,
Allison
Haarini
Posts: 21
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 7:22 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Science fair project: lung cancer

Post by Haarini »

Hello Mr.Pharma and Ms.Allison,

Firstly, I would like to thank you for replying to my question and it really helped me. I did some background research on what apoptosis is and I found out that apoptosis is the death of cells which occur in a normal organism. By my understanding, I think this research paper is suggesting that the Bcl2 BH4 antagonist is a protein that can imitate normal cell death and can kill the cancer cells. I'm not too sure if my summation of this research paper is correct or not. I came up with an idea relating to this, but I do not really know much about this idea either. I had an idea of making an innovation where you can use this Bcl2 Bh4 antagonist in an inhaler form since it sends the medicine right to the lungs where the cancer cells are. I'm not too sure if there is already an inhaler form of medicine for lung cancer.

I'm finding this topic a bit too hard for me as well, so I found another idea. I searched for more things that can cure cancer. From what I learned from this first research paper, apoptosis is a process whereby cells die on a regular basis, so I looked for more foods that induce apoptosis. I found many fruits that can possibly prevent and even cure cancer. I have an idea of using this information to create a kind of fruit and vegetable milkshake. Since I can't really test this, I found a research paper that just talks about apoptosis to support the shake idea. Is this idea already used? I have a choice of either doing a study, innovation or an experiment. So if I'm going with the Bcl2 Bh4 antagonist one, I'm deciding to do the inhaler innovation, and if I'm deciding to do the shake idea, I am going to do a study. However, I'm having trouble choosing which topic to do now. Can you please help me pick between these two?For the milkshake idea, I have a title called: A healthy milkshake for a cancer-free life. Is it a good catchy title? Can you please reply asap?The link for the apoptosis cure is linked below.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4091735/
Thank you for the help and support!
Regards,
Haarini
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