Priyen Patel, a junior at Sussex Technical High School near Georgetown, Del., seems like a typical good kid: great grades in his classes, an Academic Challenge student, hospital volunteer, a cross-country runner. But he is more than just that. He recently won an honorable mention at the National U.S. BioGenius Challenge, a nationwide competition for student-created and operated biotech research project.
Patel was inspired to do his research after reading an article about prescription drugs in Delaware’s water. Rather than repeating the research and confirming the presence of these drugs, he wanted to learn how a difference could be made.
“I wanted to see how we could remove these from our water supply,” he explained.
The experiment included water tainted with two over-the-counter medications: ibuprofen, found in anti-inflammatory drugs, such as Aleve, and acetaminophen, a pain reliever in drugs such as Tylenol. Patel then tested how much of the drugs could be removed using four different kinds of water filtration systems.
“Water distillation was the most effective,” said Patel, noting that the age-old technique of evaporating water and collecting the condensation removed 100 percent of ibuprofen and 99.99 percent of acetaminophen.
The method beat out other types of filters, such as those that take out charged ions or use solid carbon matter to get rid of unwanted particles. Distillation performed much better than commercial-grade filters found in many homes.
Patel said most states don’t even test water for pharmaceuticals because it can be a costly process, since each drug requires its own special test and the testing is not required by law.
After placing first at the Sussex County, Del., science fair and first in the medicine and health category at the Delaware Valley science fair, Patel was selected with two other Delaware finalists to advance to the national level. The other two finalists were Achille Tenkiang and Jaewoong Yoo, both from the Charter School of Wilmington.
At the national competition, held in Washington, D.C., at the end of June – in addition to his honorable mention, which he calls “basically, 11th place” – Patel also won a special contest and got to discuss his project and the program on 14 different radio stations around the country.
“It was a different experience,” he said of the national competition. “Some of the judges were very knowledgeable.”
According to the BioGenius Challenge Web site, the judges at the national level are all biotech experts.
Patel studies both electronics and health professions at Sussex Tech and said his research won’t end with this project. This summer, he assisted Dr. Qiquan Wang at Delaware State University in extracting mitochondrial DNA from hair cells.
“It was very interesting to do all these types of research in things that weren’t being researched enough,” Patel said.
Wang is also the one who let Patel use his lab space for his water filtration research.
“I think he has very big potential to become an outstanding scientist in the future,” Wang said.
He called Patel’s research college-level and affirmed that he had nothing to do with coming up with the research ideas in involved in the project.
“I helped realize the idea,” he said, calling Patel thoughtful, creative and diligent.
Patel called research rewarding and said that, in the future, he hopes to go to college and then perhaps medical school, to become a doctor.
And watch out, science fair contestants. Patel plans to enter again this year, with a new biotech project.
