Team Canada-ISEF 2007 Announced

March 25, 2007

Sixteen of Canada’s brightest high school scientists have been selected by Youth Science Foundation (YSF) Canada to represent Canada at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) May 13-19 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Intel ISEF is the world’s largest science fair.

Team Canada-ISEF was selected by a distinguished panel of 16 university faculty, industry researchers, educators and Team Canada alumni through a competitive national selection process that began in December and concluded today as part of Youth Science Month.

Last year, Team Canada-ISEF fared extremely well, bringing home numerous awards including a prestigious Best of Category Award in biochemistry for Adrian Veres of Montréal (pictured on home page), who is returning for 2007.

This year’s Team Canada-ISEF includes 8 ISEF veterans and 8 newcomers from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan. They are:

• Dániel Bezdek, Calgary, AB
  Short Billiards
• David Castelino, Mississauga, ON
  Soli-Tile: The Power of Green - Modeling Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells to Develop a Solar Roofing Tile
• Laurent Fradet, Sherbrooke, QC
  Determination of the optimal barium sulfate concentration in a bone cement
• Eden Full, Calgary, AB
  The Nerdy Tree: Adapting Tree Morphology for Photovoltaic Panel Arrangement
• Steven Gasior, Mississauga, ON
  Aqua Flight
• Ben Gulak & Jason Morrow, Milton & Hamilton, ON
  Tango: Tomorrow's Transportation Solution
• Mike Kapps, Thornhill, ON
  Cellular and molecular mechanisms of ethanol-induced developmental toxicity
• Sarah McCuskee, Regina, SK
  Lightning in the Laboratory: Electromagnetic Radiation from Red Sprites
• Yale Michaels, Winnipeg, MB
  Probing for Cancer With Smart shRNA
• Ketaki Rawal, Brossard, QC
  Predicting Drug Response in Alzheimers Dementia.
• Nikhita Singh, London, ON
  Environmentally Friendly Delivery System for Pesticides
• Thomas Sun & Robyn Thom, Vancouver, BC
  Diblock Copolymers and Epoxidized Carthamus tinctorius Oil as Novel Polyvinyl Chloride Plasticizers
• Adrian Veres, Montréal, QC
  Design and Development of a Novel DNA Computer System for Advanced Genetic Analysis
• David Wang, London, ON
  Bioproduction of Pleiotropic Regulatory Cytokine for Oral Administration against Autoimmune Diseases

The team will be supervised at the competition in Albuquerque by Team Director Stéfane Filion with Deidre Date, Marc Filion and Claire Heslop. All are previous ISEF competitors from 1985 to 1998.

A media event to introduce the team is scheduled for 10:00am to noon on Friday, May 11 at the MaRS Discovery District building in Toronto.

Team Canada-ISEF is a program of Youth Science Foundation Canada and is generously supported by Intel of Canada, UOIT, Genome Canada and Medtronic of Canada.