01-08-2025
UPMC Hillman Academy students present findings and progress following summer program
There were some hardworking students in our area on Friday showing everyone what they've learned after eight weeks of work.
It's all part of UPMC's Hillman Academy, which has been going on since 2009.
Each student works with a mentor over the course of the summer program.
"I've been doing this for 7 weeks, so I know what I'm talking about," Zacharias Barron, an incoming first-year student at Johns Hopkins University, said going into today's presentations.
Barron recently graduated from Woodland Hills High School. His project was focused on the drug Panobinostat, which is used to treat multiple myeloma.
"We're just trying to see the different amounts of that drug; on to the cancer cells, and which is more effective," he said.
Another student, Caelan McCormack, is a junior at St. Lawrence University in Northern Central New York.
She's originally from the Washington, D.C. area, Northern Virginia to be exact, and is attempting to stop the migration of osteosarcoma to the lungs, which happens to some patients with that form of cancer.
"We think that there's a small signaling vesicle that's doing that," McCormack said.
Of course, learning from mentors in the labs came with obstacles for the 84 kids, between high school and college, who participated this year.
"It took me four tries to start the project," Barron said.
But it's worth it. People like McCormack's dad, who survived osteosarcoma, the same disease she's studying this summer, push her.
"Knowing that he survived such a rare cancer and knowing that there are so many people that haven't survived it, has really pushed me into wanting to study osteosarcoma," she said.
Steven Jones, the project manager for the UPMC Hillman Academy, says they're hoping they can get more mentors in this program, which will allow them to get more students in.
