Team: 19
School: Santa Fe Preparatory Sch
Area of Science: Biochemistry
Proposal: Mental health is a widespread issue, and a common mental illness that disproportionately affects youth our age is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a mental illness that affects around 2.8% of the adult U.S population and 9.4% of youth in the United States of America. We have decided to focus on aiding the diagnosis of ADHD for our project. ADHD is a disorder that causes problems like hyperactivity, impulsive behavior, and difficulty paying attention and can affect learning and daily life. Genetics is one of the causes for ADHD, and thus the disease can be diagnosed with the help of gene sequencing technology. Without the technology, doctors would have to spend hours analyzing gene sequences for variations. Our project would identify gene variations, quickly, that are indicative of ADHD, aiding in its diagnosis. Using genomes from genome databases, we plan on analyzing areas of the genome, of certain chromosomes. that are known to be related to ADHD to aid in the diagnosis of ADHD. Our goal is to write a program that will compare the person’s gene sequence to the normal human gene sequence of areas of the genome associated with ADHD disorders, and will look for variations between the two. The program will then highlight the differences in the gene sequence, if there are any. If successful, our program could be incredibly helpful in diagnosing ADHD, and allowing more people to get the help they need.
Team Members:
Greta Swanson
Luke Rand
Camila Carreon
Nandita Ganesan
Sponsoring Teacher: Jocelyne Comstock