Despite doing most of their internship over Zoom, rising Hatboro-Horsham seniors Sarah Shegogue and Allyson Suman have successfully completed research that will be used by Atrin Pharmaceuticals in the future, according to a staff report from the Montgomery News.

The pair worked on research related to Wee-1, a kinase or enzyme that is involved in DNA damage repair and significantly active in cancer cells.

“When Wee-1 is inhibited, cells are forced into mitosis before they can repair their DNA damage, and therefore die,” explained Suman. “Because Wee-1 is more active in cancer cells than regular cells, inhibiting can be a form of targeted cancer therapy. This way, cancer cells will die, and healthy cells will be unaffected.”

Shegogue and Suman worked with Yasmine Azzi, who runs the company’s internship program and herself also a Hatboro-Horsham alumna.

Together with two more researchers, the group worked on reviewing papers to determine what did and what did not work from experiments and clinical trials conducted by the company’s competitors.

The research was presented last month at Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center of Bucks County.

Read more about the rising seniors at the Montgomery News by clicking here.

You Might Also Like

Villanova Student’s Mission Promoting Type 1 Diabetes Research Put Her in Touch With a President and a Pope

MCCC Alumni Among Researchers on Front Line of COVID-19 Battle

Spotted Lanternfly Trap Nabs Local Teen National Science Fair Award