Trillium Grant Part of Science Fair Winner's Global Success

Seventeen-year-old Hamilton high school student wins at fair, gets chance to spend one year in Italy!

June 4, 2002, Hamilton-  Hamilton-area high school student and recent science fair winner, has been asked to join a prestigious Italian university so she can continue her groundbreaking Alzheimer's research.

Recently, Eva won first prize at the Bay Area Science & Engineering Fair (BASEF), which was supported by a $35,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. The Grade 11 student's winning project suggested a possible method to treat brain cells to lower the instance of the programmed cell death that causes Alzheimer's.

Eva, who started competing at BASEF just three years ago, said the fair is "a great opportunity to present your work, to show a love for science and get it out in the public."

The fair was also a great stepping stone. Eva's BASEF win sent her to the 53rd Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Kentucky, where she was one of 1,200 competitors, from every part of the world, each judged by a panel of Nobel Laureates and others.

Despite the fierce competition, she placed first in the "Medicine and Health" category and was offered a $210,000 scholarship to the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Then the international interest started.

The University of Chieti, an hour's drive from Rome, was so impressed by Eva's science fair project, titled "Inhibition of programmed cell death by purine-derivative RPI-069," that the university offered Eva a chance to live in Italy for a year and continue her research at the university.

Right now, Eva is looking into correspondence courses so she can finish her high school diploma while she's working in Italy.

Eventually, the high school student hopes to get into the MD-PhD program at Stanford University in California.