Claire Martel and Christina Curran arrived at the pinnacle of high school science and engineering fairs early last week. 

The two Barrington High School students traveled to Phoenix, Ariz. to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which plays host to hundreds of the top high school science students in the world. Claire and Christina qualified for Intel ISEF by winning the Best in Fair award at the Rhode Island Science and Engineering Fair. (The locals actually shared the award with a student from Bay View Academy.)

The two BHS seniors dazzled judges with their project titled "Using Bioinformatic Techniques to Compare Gene Expression and Identify Potential Genetic Pathways in Preeclampsia."

Christina said the project is a representation of computational biology that used data about a disease that affects pregnant women.

"We were using large data-sets to find trends," she said. "I didn't think I would be interested in it, because I would not call myself a computer person. For me it was pretty interesting to use public data to make these maps and actually find new information."

For example, while studying the data-sets, Claire and Christina discovered "that the early onset and the late onset pre-eclampsia phenotypes… were actually more different from each other than they were from normal patients. That's kind of weird," said Christina. 

The standout science students partnered with Dr. Alper Uzun, who served as their mentor for the project.

"He's a medical researcher," said Christina. "He does a lot more with different kinds of LNC (Long Non-Coding) RNAs. He was really nice and he answered all of our questions, no matter how many times we asked him. He was just really patient and really helpful."

Claire and Christina enjoyed the opportunity to get some practical science experience while completing their project. 

"We were both interested, we knew, in some sort of computational biology," said Christina.

The Barrington girls said they were surprised to learn their project won the Best in Fair award, considering some of the other projects on display at states.

"We were not expecting this at all," said Christina. "There are a lot of really interesting projects going on at the science fair. Even our friend, Josh Guertler, he's a sophomore (at Barrington High School), he went last year and he was continuing his work with neutron assimilation. I try to wrap my head around it a lot and he tries to explain it to me, and he does a great job but I still don't really understand what's going on. He has done a lot of great work and I am excited to see him continue to do that."

Isabella Heffernan, a student at Bay View, shared the Best in Fair award with Christina and Claire.

"She created an organoid, as an alternative to an Epipen. It's a different non-invasive alternative to an Epipen," said Christina. 

Diana Siliezar-Shields, the chair of the science department at Barrington High School, traveled with Claire and Christina to the Intel ISEF. She said both girls have done some very impressive work with their science project. 

Focused on science

Claire and Christina have been interested in science for many years, and they've known each other for many years too. The two girls first met in fourth grade. 

Following graduation next month, both girls plan to attend colleges in Boston. Claire is going to Brandeis University and will major in biochemistry. Christina will attend Northeastern University and also plans to major in biochemistry.