Mr Navin Brian, Ms Sewa Duying and Mr Dai Yisong have something to smile about – they were National Junior College students attached to IMCB labs during their H3 program in 2006 and the fruits of the hard work put in have paid off in the recent Singapore Science Engineering Fair (SSEF) 2007. They are all gold medal winners, with Navin and Duying clinching one gold for their project with the Neural Differentiation and Degeneration lab on “Cdc42 Binding to IRSp53 Induces Filopodia Formation and Causes Localization of IRSp53 to the Leading Edge of Motile Cells”. Navin and Duying also have the honors of representing Singapore for the International Science Engineering Fair 2007 in May this year at New Mexico.

Yisong, who was with the Fish Developmental Biology lab, also won a Gold award. He was working on the project “Studying the Effects of Tol2 on Two Transgenic Danio rerio Lines; ET33 and ET33E20”.

Ms Magdalena Koh, who is from Anglo Chinese Junior College (ACJC), won a silver medal for her project on “CB25 Crystal structure determination of a complex involving the fat protein”.

One other student, Vincent Lau, from NJC, won a Merit award at the competition. He was attached to the Control of the p53 Pathway lab, and was working on a project titled “The design of peptide aptamers with improved binding to eIF4E”.

Congratulations to the students and their mentors!

Award details:

SSEF 2007 Gold (Pair)
Winners: Navin Brian (NJC) and Sewa Duying (NJC)
Mentor: Dr Jeffrey Robens, GSK-IMCB Lab
Project: Cdc42 Binding to IRSp53 Induces Filopodia Formation and Causes Localization of IRSp53 to the Leading Edge of Motile Cells

SSEF 2007 Gold (individual)
Winner: Dai Yisong (NJC)
Mentor: Dr Marta Garcia, VK Lab
Project: Studying the Effects of Tol2 on Two Transgenic Danio rerio Lines; ET33 and ET33E20

SSEF 2007 Silver (Individual)
Winner: Magdalena Koh (ACJC)
Mentor: Dr Swaminathan Kunchithapadam, SK lab
Project: CB25 Crystal structure determination of a complex involving the fat protein

SSEF 2007 Merit (Individual)
Winner: Vincent Lau (NJC)
Mentor: Dr David Coomber, DPL lab
Project: The design of peptide aptamers with improved binding to eIF4E