Loudoun Academy of Science Alumna Asai Wins $100,000 Research Grant
Scholarship Winner Elizabeth Asai, a 2009 graduate of the Loudoun Academy of Science (AOS) and Loudoun County High School, is already making her mark in the fields of engineering and medicine.
Asai, who is beginning her junior year at Yale, and two classmates in the university’s Morse College have received a $100,000 grant from the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) in Boston to develop a miniature camera that monitors melanoma.
“Doctors, right now, don’t really have a good way to measure elevation or – say a mole has changed its volume – and now, instead of being bumpy in one direction it’s bumpy in another direction,” said Asai. “Those kinds of things aren’t really being tracked right now.”
Asai and her classmates Nick Demas and Elliot Swart took a camera and converted it into a 3-D scanner. They adapted the camera/scanner so it could be used on a very small scale; measuring an area of skin an inch in diameter, maximum.
The camera, called “Stereoscopic Plug-and-Play Dermatoscope and Web Interface,” would be marketed through dermatologists and used by patients at home. The patient would take a picture of a mole and the camera would upload that image onto the Internet. Asai and her colleagues also have created a web interface so that the pictures could be uploaded and logged in a way that is easy for doctors to view.
Part of developing this project, Asai said, was learning the “ABC’s of moles” (asymmetry, border, color, diameter). “Our image processing goes through each one of those and sees if there are any key changes between each image. If there is – and this is the part we’re going to be working on in our beta testing – determining the threshold for how big a change it really is. Once we have that threshold down, we already have a built-in alert system. If the computer detects, say, a millimeter change in diameter over two weeks it will automatically flag it so when the doctor logs on the first thing he sees is that this person has a significant change.”
Asai said this technology is necessary because even dermatologists who believe in imaging usually do it once or twice a year. “(Using our device) three months after a visit if something goes horribly wrong, they would see it, do a biopsy and take it off you.”
The CIMIT Prize for Primary Healthcare competition encourages engineering students to develop technological innovations that have potential to enhance patient care at the initial point of contact with the healthcare system. In addition to the grant money, Asai and her colleagues will attend a biotech conference in Boston where they will pitch their idea to academics and investors who could support it. The three Yale undergrads already have a provisional patent that’s good for a year. In that time they plan on finalizing the design.
“It would be really cool to see how far this company could go while we’re still in school,” said Asai. She quickly added that she and her colleagues have agreed to keep up with classes and enjoy college life while working on the project. (They have been working 20 to 30 hours a week on this project independent of any Yale engineering courses. They developed the prototype in their dorm rooms, used the Engineering School’s 3D printing facility to fabricate its ergonomic plastic parts and conducted a clinical study at Yale Dermatology Associates.)
Asai said the Academy of Science gave her the academic background necessary to do what she’s doing at Yale.
“The two-year research project that you do is a complete 101 prep course for this kind of work…You have everything you need to pursue an idea as far as you can in two years. That was an experience; I don’t know of many kids at school who had an experience close to that.”
Most of her Yale classmates – even those whom attended science and technology schools – pursued research projects after hours outside of school, Asai added. Through the Academy of Science, she was given mentors, funding and, most importantly, time to pursue an advanced research project while still in high school.
“Even in college, it’s rare to go out on an individual project.”
Asai’s Academy of Science research project dealt with two plants – one found in California, one found in China – that are known for their anti-oxidant properties. Asai worked with a fellow Academy of Science student and two students in Singapore in exploring the relative values of these plants. What they found was that the Chinese plant, which is imported to America at a cost of millions of dollars, was lower in anti-oxidants than the plant growing by the roadside in California.
Reflecting on her work at Yale, Asai had this observation: “I felt like I was back at AOS.”
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Posted by Resident
on Sep 13 2011. Filed under Loudoun County.
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