Jackson High School students receive research stipends

Three Jackson High School seniors were recently awarded $1,000 research stipends to complete high-level research projects, through Science Coach, a program of BioSTL.

Mallorie Coffee, Eli Jones and Tate Friedrich earned the only three stipends available to students in a four-state area, said science teacher Leanne Thele, who is a second-year participant in the Science Coach program.

Science Coach, a not-for-profit agency, has trained teachers to coach sixth- through 12th-grade students to conduct high-level research since 2007, and the Senior Stipend is designed to inspire students to continue doing research in their senior year, according to a news release.

This year, Science Coach has teams in Missouri, Illinois, New Mexico and Kansas.

In March, Coffee and Jones each earned top honors at the 64th annual Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair in Cape Girardeau, and they are each continuing research on those projects.

Friedrich’s work is toward building an ion-propelled aircraft, or ionocraft, which would use electric current to create thrust, rather than a traditional aircraft’s mechanics. He’s expanding on research conducted by MIT and NASA, he said.

To offset the weight of batteries, Friedrich is using a zeppelin design, he said.

“There is a lot of expensive and niche work involved,” Friedrich said, so this stipend will make a big difference in how much he can accomplish.

“My research would make airplanes more efficient,” and reduce greenhouse gases and fossil fuel usage, Friedrich said. Multiple domestic and military applications are also possible.

Jones is working in a new field of organic chemistry, seeking a more efficient, less toxic method to synthesize a molecule that could help fight disease in developing nations.

His project last year sought to minimize the number of steps to synthesize Limbergin E, a compound that is available in only one type of plant, that has medicinal applications. He hopes to publish a paper on his findings within two years.

Jones is working now on creating a catalyst that will streamline the molecular synthesis process, and to do that, he needs metals, including platinum. He’s hoping to use the research stipend to procure materials that will be of sufficient quality to secure best results.

Coffee is continuing her research into solving antibiotic resistance. Her strategy is to block the chemical communication that causes the strep throat virus to release its toxins, which makes a patient sick. She’d already found that the strategy has potential, so to continue her work, she plans to introduce the germs and the negative signaling chemical on a cell line, and observe how each element interacts.

Cell lines are expensive, she said, both to purchase initially and to keep alive long enough to have trials and record results.

Thele said she’s proud of her students and excited to see how far the program has come in such a short time.

“Last year was our first year with Science Coach,” she said. “And for these three to take the only three spots available out of four states, that’s just above and beyond.”