It’s not every day you create a device that could help advance genetic research.
But that’s exactly what three year 11 students at Melbourne’s John Monash Science School have done.
They’ve created a ‘Movement Impeding Device’ and student Aashutosh Sapkota says it helps researchers better analyse zebrafish embryos – animals we share almost 80 per cent of our genome with.
"It’s supposed to stop the movement of zebrafish while we observe them, so the problem we had was when we tried to observe them over long periods, let’s say 24, 36 hours, they’d move around a lot, and there was no way to capture the whole zebrafish all the time."
The sixteen year-olds came up with the novel idea after working with researchers at Monash University’s FishCore lab.
They learned there wasn’t a standard procedure to immobilise the zebrafish embryos.
Student Angad Singh says using a 3D printer, they engineered one.
"Originally we were in the biology side of it, doing another experiment, but then we realized this problem, and engineering was an interest of all three of us, and we liked this idea of innovating something, and developing something."
Professor Peter Currie worked closely with the students as they developed their idea.
"Working with high school students is highly renewing, they come with ideas and thoughts completely out of left field (new and surprising thoughts). We spent hours and hours and hours injecting our small little fish embryos with a number of things to try and understand why they can regenerate and we can’t. And it is a very intensive activity for the individual research scientist, and what they’ve come up with is a very useful tool that can speed up that process."
The boys’ innovation was so impressive they were announced as Victorian winners of the Australian Information Industry award.
Student Praneel Chugh says it was all about teamwork, and perseverance.
"We had quite a few prototypes, we had quite a few design changes as well, changing from a screw-based design to a spring-based design. It took around six months."
Knowing the students were on to something, teachers at John Monash Science School gave them the time they needed to fine-tune their device.
Principal Peter Corkill says the trio was inquisitive and determined.
The boys have actually made a contribution to contemporary research, from a start, where, I don’t know whether in all honesty, they thought that was going to happen.
Professor Peter Currie says the students’ device could assist with medical breakthroughs, helping his team understand how to harness regenerative abilities already present in human skin and kidneys.
"These animals, (if we) cut their spinal cords, they’re paralysed just like we are, normally, but six weeks later, they’re swimming around happily and their spinal cord neurons have regrown and reconnected. If we could understand that, imagine what we could do for people who have quadriplegia. Another big area is heart regeneration. Adult zebrafish have the ability to regenerate their heart after injury, and heart attacks cause the greatest morbidity in the western world. So if we can learn this amazing party trick that the zebrafish have, to regenerate their heart, and use those secrets on our own biology, then we’d be on to a real winner."
The next step for the students is winning a national award, then adapting their device for other experiments.
