Aarohi Sonputri, a student at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, has been selected as a semifinalist in the Regeneron Science Talent Search.
The Regeneron STS is the nation’s most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. The program is sponsored by the Society for Science. Each year, 300 Regeneron STS scholars are selected as semifinalists. A pool of 40 finalists are later invited to participate in final judging, display their work publicly, meet with notable scientists and compete for awards, including the contest’s top award of $250,000.
Sonputri is the only semifinalist from Arkansas. This year’s semifinalists were selected from 2,162 entrants from 712 high schools in 46 states, Puerto Rico and 10 other countries — the highest number of entrants since 1969, according to a press release on the Society for Science website.
Sonputri said it is an incredible honor to be selected as a semifinalist that allows her to stand out as a STEM student and innovator.
“I am now able to connect to STS alumni globally and be a part of their elaborate network that is a very helpful resource as I proceed towards further studies,” she said.
Sonputri was very excited to receive the news she had been selected to continue in the contest. “I was squealing with joy and ran to my parents to share the good news! It felt surreal. I am incredibly happy to have accomplished this,” she said.
The senior from Little Rock was recognized for her research on a potential therapy for patients who have diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Her research investigated targeting CARD11, a cancer-promoting gene in B-cell lymphoma cells. She was able to identify a small molecule that stabilizes a part of the DNA structure called a G-quadruplex (G-4) within CARD11. Stabilizing that gene region led to the repression of CARD11, thus preventing additional cancer growth. The therapeutic strategy could provide an alternative treatment with fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy and radiation.
Research for the paper was conducted as part of Sonputri’s capstone project. The capstone program provides ASMSA students the opportunity to study a topic in the STEM or humanities field. STEM students often conduct original research that results in hands-on lab work. Sonputri conducted her research in a laboratory at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences as part of her Life Science capstone project.
Sonputri worked in the lab of Dr. Samantha Kendrick, an assistant professor at UAMS and an associate member of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. She said Kendrick and Kennith Swafford, a Ph.D. student at UAMS who served as a lab supervisor, made her feel at ease. Shadowing others, running experiments on her own and attending lab meetings helped her feel more comfortable.
“The work was definitely rigorous but incredibly interesting, so I was not discouraged from it whatsoever,” Sonputri said. “I think the biggest lesson one learns in a research space is regarding handling hardships. High-achieving students often have the tendency to be discouraged over failures; however, being in a lab where you are bound to have one experiment be unsuccessful once in a while, you learn to question in a way that prompts critical thinking and creativity.”
Dr. Whitney Holden, an Instructor of Excellence in Life Sciences at ASMSA, serves as Sonputri’s capstone adviser. Holden said Sonputri’s dedication to her research was “nothing short of extraordinary.”
“With over 750 chemicals screened to identify potential inhibitors for a critical pathway in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, her commitment to advancing medical knowledge is unparalleled,” Holden said. “Aarohi’s results stand as the most impressive set I’ve seen in my over 10 years of mentoring high school students.
“Her remarkable achievement as a Regeneron STS semifinalist is also a shining example of the invaluable opportunities provided by ASMSA’s capstone program, especially where we place students in UAMS labs, allowing students like Aarohi to immerse themselves in rigorous scientific efforts.”