The winners of the Edmonton Regional SABC 2009 are…

1st Place!
Victoria Tien, Kate Chevalier and Connie Le, brilliant grade 12 students from Old Scona Academic High School, won the $2,000 first place prize with a study looking at The Potential Use of Sertoli and Bone Marrow Cells to Promote the Survival and Function of Newborn Pig Islets. Dr. Gina Rayat, Assistant Professor of Surgery, University of Alberta, mentored this team throughout their research. Representing Edmonton, Victoria, Kate and Connie will present their research at the national competition before a panel of experts at the National Research Council in Ottawa, on May 5th, 2009.

2nd Place
Amogh Agrawal, grade 12 student of Old Scona Academic High School won the $1,500 second place prize for a project that investigated the The Quest for a Universal Influenza Vaccine. Amogh’s mentors, Drs. Suresh and Agrawal, are a Professor and Associate Dean of Pharmacy and an Associate Professor of Surgery, respectively, at the University of Alberta.

3rd Place
The third place prize of $1,000 was awarded to Zachariah Mansour, a grade 12 student from Harry Ainlay Composite High School. He was mentored by Dr. Declan Ali, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta who supported Zachariah throughout his project titled PKC and PICK-1 are Vital for Synaptic Development.

4th Place
$750 was awarded to Rebecca Velic and Karlin Su, Grade 11 students of W.P. Wagner High School for achieving fourth place. These students worked on their project titled: Speeding the Sedimentation and Water Formation in Fine Tailings Using Agricultural Waste Products with the help of their mentor Dr. David Bressler, Assisstant Professor of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Alberta.

5th Place
Fifth place prize of $500 was awarded to Mike Bao (a grade 12 at Harry Ainlay Composite High School) and Allan Kang (grade 11 at Old Scona Academic High School). Dr.Sujata Persad, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta, mentored this team throughout their research titled Regulation of E-cadherin and N-cadherin in Metastatic Melanoma Progression by the PI-3 kinase-PTEN Pathway.

Edmonton’s SABC 2009 Final Event was held on April 21, 2009 at the TIMMS Centre on the U of A Campus. Thank you to all participants for your extremely professional efforts. The Edmonton coordinator received many comments indicating that your presentations were better than what many had seen at international scientific conferences!