{"id":225832,"date":"2025-02-18T11:36:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T16:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=225832"},"modified":"2025-09-19T12:25:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T16:25:43","slug":"ct-high-school-students-publish-their-artificial-intelligence-research-performed-at-uconn-school-of-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/02\/ct-high-school-students-publish-their-artificial-intelligence-research-performed-at-uconn-school-of-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"CT High School Students Publish Their Artificial Intelligence Research Performed at UConn School of Medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Connecticut high school seniors Meera Kannan and Gabrielle Bridgewater have published their study findings<\/a> on \u201cLeveraging public AI tools to explore systems biology resources in mathematical modeling\u201d<\/em> this month in the journal NPJ Systems Biology and Applications.<\/em><\/p>\n

They conducted their research at UConn School of Medicine in the Laboratory of Dr. Michael Blinov<\/a> as part of their Health Career Opportunity Programs experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cNPJ Systems Biology and Applications is one of the top journals in\u00a0systems\u00a0biology,\u201d shares their proud mentor and senior study author Michael Blinov, Ph.D., associate professor of Genetics and Genome Sciences at the Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling at UConn School of Medicine. \u201cThe application of AI tools in biology is a rapidly evolving and exciting field. This is a great achievement for these high school students, and they deserve it through their\u00a0hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Feb. 22\u00a0 the two high school students will be presenting their scientific findings virtually at the 62nd<\/sup> Connecticut Junior Science and Humanities Symposium<\/a> hosted by the UConn Health-based CT AHEC program in Farmington. Each year the long-running, prestigious symposium gathers the state\u2019s talented high school students exceling across the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you very much Dr. Blinov for your many years of dedication hosting our Health Career Opportunity Programs High School students in your research laboratory. The fact that these two high school students are co-first authors on a manuscript from research conducted in your Lab and presenting their research at the CT Junior Science and Humanities Symposium at UConn Health is phenomenal,\u201d shared Dr. Marja Hurley, UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and professor of medicine and orthopaedic surgery at UConn School of Medicine. Hurley is founder and associate dean of the Health Career Opportunity Programs at UConn Health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited to share our findings with a larger group of people. I hope this will spur more exploration of the intersection of AI with other fields of medicine,\u201d says Kannan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am extremely excited to\u00a0present our findings and share our hard work with the larger science community. I know our research is already published and out there for anyone who wants to read it, but getting\u00a0to speak about it still feels so special,\u201d says Bridgewater.<\/p>\n

Blinov truly enjoys working with the eager to learn, dedicated, and hardworking HCOP students at UConn School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years, my HCOP students have played an essential role in many of my projects. My experiences with high school students have been very positive, and in this particular case, these two students were fortunate that their chosen study topic led to a quick success story,\u201d Blinov says.<\/p>\n

He finds it incredibly rewarding to see the gratitude and success of his past high school HCOP program students many of whom have gone on to have successful health care careers at places such as Yale, Cornell, and UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my most notable success stories is my 2017 HCOP student, Nathan Schaumburger. He later joined UConn and returned to work with me in 2020, which led to a 2023 publication<\/a>, with another paper forthcoming. Nathan is now a graduate student at Harvard,\u201d Blinov proudly shares.<\/p>\n

Meet the Study Co-Authors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lead co-author Meera Kannan, 18, is a senior at South Windsor High School. She hopes to become a future physician.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting to be published. I was motivated to explore how AI could have a positive impact and make systems biology more accessible for students like me. I hope to continue working with Dr. Blinov and other professors at UConn in the future,\u201d says Kannan.<\/p>\n

Kannan credits HCOP for opening her mind further to both innovative medicine and research.<\/p>\n

\u201cI first heard about HCOP during a tour of UConn in my sophomore year. I was very interested in their mission as well as in conducting research, so I decided to apply. I think this program helped reveal the creativity behind medicine and taught me a lot about the impact of scientific innovation,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Kannan hopes to conduct more research in a variety of fields to broaden her horizons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI plan to pursue medicine, and this experience at UConn has been central in solidifying that commitment. The skills and perspectives I\u2019ve learned here will definitely be invaluable as I explore the more rigorous side of medicine,\u201d says Kannan.<\/p>\n

Lead co-author Gabrielle Bridgewater, 17, is a senior at Tolland\u00a0High School and also wants to be a future doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a published author and\u00a0getting\u00a0to conduct my own study is definitely\u00a0the most exciting thing I\u2019ve ever done and\u00a0my proudest accomplishment to date,\u201d Bridgewater exclaims. \u201cIt\u2019s honestly also really motivating because it makes me so excited for what\u2019s next and it really feels like the sky is the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe chose to\u00a0study\u00a0AI because it\u2019s a field that\u2019s\u00a0rapidly expanding and relevant to kids our age. When our peers\u00a0have questions most of them look to AI to answer them, so we wanted to see how useful it could be for students who are interested in learning\u00a0more about systems biology (like ourselves). It\u2019s a relatively niche field which means in a lot of cases AI might be the most accessible\u00a0tool to use if\u00a0they want to educate themselves on the subject. We wanted to understand\u00a0just how reliable of a tool it is,\u00a0and\u00a0its potential for studying\u00a0systems\u00a0biology,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Bridgewater was inspired to enter the health sciences and join the HCOP program by her father who is biochemist.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring my junior year he was helping me look for summer opportunities where\u00a0I could get hands on healthcare experience and he found the HCOP program. I truly enjoyed every moment of the program. I think it was especially unique because not only did I get research experience, but I also got to learn about the college and\u00a0medical school application processes, talk to current pre-med undergraduates, and improve my public speaking skills. Without the program I would never have had access to this information\u00a0and these opportunities,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience with HCOP definitely\u00a0solidified my passion for pursuing a career as a physician. It also sparked my interest\u00a0in possibly going down the MD\/PhD route which is a path I wasn\u2019t previously aware of. I know I want to continue conducting research, gaining exposure to the health sciences, and exploring the intersection of AI and\u00a0systems biology,\u201d concludes Bridgewater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two high school seniors are first authors of a new AI study published in one of the top journals for systems biology. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":225834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,2388,1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-225832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-healthcare-workforce","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 18:13:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225835,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225832\/revisions\/225835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/225834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225832"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=225832"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=225832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}