They just graduated in June, but three members of Rowland Hall’s class of 2024 are already published researchers.
As seniors, Sophie Baker, Isabelle Bown, and Adam Saidykhan—the first students enrolled in Advanced Research Biology, now in its second year—took on an impressive yearlong research project.
This week, their work was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Cancers.
We’re not the only ones excited about Sophie, Isabelle, and Adam’s accomplishment—this week, local news stations FOX 13 and ABC4 came to campus to film segments highlighting this impactful work and what it could mean for breast cancer research.
Over the 2023–2024 school year, the students focused on identifying novel, actionable treatment targets for androgen receptor-low triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a lethal cancer subtype, by focusing on the role centrosome biology may play in its deadly impact. (Learn more about their research in Fine Print.) Their hope was to enrich the research community's understanding of some of the crucial molecular drivers of this aggressive breast cancer subtype—and hopefully advance the way it’s treated.
This work is important. TNBCs are especially lethal because they test negative for three common actionable cancer biomarkers, leaving patients without approved precision treatments. TNBCs disproportionately affect Black women, are more common in women with dense breasts, have a high tendency to spread rapidly around the body, and have a high chance of recurrence or relapse within five years of diagnosis.
And though the three students were hopeful they could further this work, they also knew their research may not pan out.
“Dr. Rida informed us early on there was a chance this could lead to nothing; we could have nothing published,” said Adam. Still, the students were determined to try, and were excited that, during their early research, they discovered a novel approach they could pursue over the year. “We’re fairly lucky that we managed to find something of note,” Adam continued.
I am thrilled that their findings are now part of the body of scientific knowledge out there, and will form the foundations of many more important studies and explorations in our search for better breast cancer treatments.—Dr. Padmashree Rida, Upper School biology teacher
The group first presented their findings as a poster at the American Association of Cancer Research’s annual meeting in San Diego in April during a special session for high school students titled “The Conquest of Cancer and the Next Generation of Cancer Researchers.” They then began collaborating with AR Biology teacher Dr. Padmashree Rida and City of Hope researcher Dr. Nikita Jinna on a manuscript about the topic, which was submitted in August to the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.
On September 11, the young researchers received one of the most exciting emails of their budding careers: they were notified that their work would be published in Cancers as a feature paper in the “Cancer Biomarkers” section.
Dr. Rida, who has dedicated her career to mentoring new generations of researchers, is delighted for her first group of AR Biology students. They fully embraced the topic and worked tirelessly to reach this achievement—one that may make a real difference in the care of patients facing this aggressive cancer subtype.
“I am thrilled that their findings are now part of the body of scientific knowledge out there, and will form the foundations of many more important studies and explorations in our search for better breast cancer treatments,” she said.
Banner: Adam Saidykhan ’24, one of the AP Biology researchers, chats with FOX 13 reporter Scott McKane on the Lincoln Street Campus on September 19.
Advanced Research