As Raina Jain remembers it, her dad, a materials engineering professor at Lehigh University, said something at the dinner table about another Lehigh lab where scientists were studying Bioglass, a man-made material that prompts the body to grow new bone.
Jain was fascinated. She contacted Dr. Matthias Falk, who teaches cell biology at Lehigh, and asked if she could work in the lab. He said she could even though she was just a freshman at Freedom High School in Bethlehem.
“He was very open about giving me the chance,” says Jain, now a senior. Each year of high school she’s spent part of her school day doing research at Lehigh. The work she did in 10th grade netted her a first-place win at the International BioGENEius Challenge, an international competition for high school students.
That led to Jain’s biggest bragging rights yet: An invitation to the White House Science Fair earlier this month. Teen scientists from around the country, including others from Pennsylvania, were invited.
And Jain was one of a select few who got to present their projects to the Commander in Chief himself.
“It was very surreal,” Jain says, adding that President Barack Obama asked intelligent questions about the applications of her work.
For the project she took to the White House, Jain studied whether Bioglass which dissolves over time as new bone forms in its place sticks better to a rough or a smooth surface. She found that smooth surfaces are best.
Bioglass can also be applied in powder form, and Jain is now researching which size of powder particle is most effective. She says she met Dr. Larry Hench, who discovered Bioglass, and he suggested that project.
Jain hasn’t figured out which college she’ll go to next year, but she’s leaning toward a major in biology or bioengineering.
Source: Raina Jain, Freedom High School
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen
