Nov. 2016: “Loudoun Eighth-Grader Eyes a Cure for Cancer, Partners with Research Team”

From The Loudoun Times-Mirror:

Alex Misiaszek, an eighth-grader at Nysmith School for the Gifted, is collaborating with a research team in Baltimore to create an organism inside the human body that produces a cancer-killing molecule. The student will spend his free time researching and developing his hypotheses with professional scientists. Misiaszek says his motivations is simply “to help people.”

“Cancer is a horrible disease. We’ve all lost family member and friends to it,” he said. “Finding a cure for cancer has always been a fascination for me and I’m really glad I get to pursue it.”

Misiaszek said his ground breaking idea came in part from a science project he did last year.

“I took the DNA from a coral cell that made it red and then I put it into an E. Coli cell to prove that if you took DNA from one organism and put it into a foreign one, the foreign organism will pass that trait onto its offspring,” he explained.

For the full article go to:
http://www.loudountimes.com/news/article/loudoun_eighth_grader_with_an_idea_for_
curing_cancer_partners_with_research