With a worm and a dream, student enters nat'l contest
JFK H.S. student spent three months of intense research at Rutgers U.
BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer

WOODBRIDGE - At 17, Laura Toth has found her passion for those 1-millimeter free-living nematodes [roundworms] thriving beneath her feet.

The worms, called caenorhabditis elegans, or better known as C. elegans, live in the soil.

Toth, a senior at John F. Kennedy Memorial High School in Iselin, was selected from 1,705 entrants as one of 300 high school seniors nationally to be named as a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search for 2007.

As a result, she was awarded $1,000 and JFK High School received $1,000 to support excellence in science, math or engineering education. Toth, along with her classmate Vicky Du, were selected to present their science research papers at the Monmouth Junior Science Symposium at Monmouth University next weekend. Toth received two resolutions from the Woodbridge Board of Education at their Feb. 15 meeting.

"I think they are cute," said Toth, referring to the 1-millimeter roundworm.

The Intel Science Talent Search is America's oldest precollege science competition. For more than 60 years, the competition - often referred to as the "junior Nobel Prize" - has provided an incentive and an arena for U.S. high school seniors to complete an original research project and have it recognized by a national jury of highly regarded professional scientists.

During her sophomore year, Toth entered her high school's science research program under adviser Kathleen Piccinich, which gives a student a feel for how to conduct research.

"The goal for the end of senior year is to put out a good piece of research and data," said Toth. "I chose to concentrate on life spans for the diabetes and obesity diseases, where I was able to observe C. elegans, which are very commonly used when studying life spans because they have a short life span and reproduce quickly."

Toth took a C. elegans and wanted to find out what happens to the worm when it is exposed to a food source that is not normally the food source it uses.

C. elegans' normal food source is Escherichia coli [E. coli]. The title of her research is "Mutants Upstream in the Insulin-like Signaling Pathway Increase the Susceptibility of C. elegans to the Pathogen Alcaligenes Faecalis [A. faecalis]." Her project turned into a three-year research project.

"I randomly chose A. faecalis, which I thought sounded like a cool bacteria to use," said Toth. "What I found was when I did an age-1 mutation of the C. elegans with the A. faecalis, the once-long-lived bacteria became short-lived."

Toth set out to discover why and took her research a step further by going to Rutgers University to work in its lab that deals with C. elegans.

"I approached Monica Driscoll and Dr. Abah Chandra, who worked in the molecular biology lab, with my idea and hypothesis," said Toth. "I just needed advanced equipment to work with to do more research. I worked six- to eight-hour days, Monday through Saturday, researching during the summer between my junior and senior years."

Toth spent her summer focusing on mutation, and in the end was closer to her quest, but said there would be a lot more mutations to be done to figure out why the bacteria A. faecalis became short-lived.

"I believe that with the increase of insulin [which are found in C. elegans] to A. faecalis, it affects the entire organism," said Toth. "It's similar to insulin signaling in humans, and I hope to one day find out a way to expand the lifetime for people with the diabetes disease, and control obesity. When I was at Rutgers, I also made my own mutation, which I called Age 1 Suppressor Mutant. I love him; he's now thousands of generations old."

Toth said her three-year project with her three-month intense study in the Rutgers University lab was a priceless experience.

"It was amazing," said Toth. "I love being in the lab and researching. It gives me the best feeling. I got to work with wonderful people over at Rutgers and I learned a lot."

Toth, who grew up around science, since her father, Matthew, is a biologist, said she has always been interested in her father's profession.

"When I was little, I would play with dinosaurs and I loved my first chemistry kit," she said.

As Toth waits for good news from Yale University in Connecticut, she could not help mentioning that she loves John F. Kennedy High School and the support she gets from the principal and the teachers, especially from Kathleen Piccinich, and her parents, Matthew and Marilyn Toth.

"I know I definitely want to research and work in the lab, but I'm not sure what field I want to concentrate in," she said. "Everyone asks me if I'm going to study molecular biology, and I said I'm not sure because I'm also interested in particle physics. I think I want to go to graduate school and receive my Ph.D. Just as long as I am doing research in a lab with gloves and goggles on, I'll be happy."