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Noblesville High School students make scientific discovery

Four seniors in Caitlyn Foye's biomedical innovations course researched plant DNA and were able to publish four new novel gene sequences.

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. — Joshua Lamantia never imagined he'd be a published scientist before he graduated high school. But thanks to his science teacher and a pandemic detour, he and a handful of classmates are proud to put that title on their resume.

"It's surreal," Lamantia said, who is now a freshman studying forensic science at IUPUI. "All scientists work toward publishing their work and the fact that we achieved that at such a young age … it's surreal to think about that."

To understand how it happened, you have to go back about a year, to all those pandemic restrictions.

"Last year was very difficult," Caitlyn Foye said, who teaches the biomedical innovations course at Noblesville High School in partnership with Project Lead the Way. It's a capstone class for seniors that’s supposed to include a big research internship somewhere — the exclamation point at the end of each student’s final semester of high school. But because of the pandemic, there would be no internships that semester. Anywhere.

"The students were devastated," Foye said. "And so we just worked from there to figure out what we could do together that was really meaningful and hopefully something that would set them up for success."

Credit: Noblesville Schools
Brayden Colon, Steven Kozakiewicz, Joshua Lamantia, and Josh Middleton, who are now freshmen in college, helped publish four new novel gene sequences.

Steven Kozakiewicz, now a freshman biochemistry major at IU, said the cancelled internships would soon turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Foye decided to use her background in genetics, along with the equipment they had access to, thanks to a partnership with Ivy Tech, to do a research project on plant DNA.

The project was funded through a grant from the Noblesville Education Foundation.

"We were identifying a gene in moss, ferns and fern alleles that is one of the key genes in breaking down food into usable energy for the cell," Foye said. "And we were able to publish four new novel gene sequences."

Their DNA sequencing work was considered the first of its kind in the world.

It ended up being published in a national science database and in the Indiana Academy of Science.

"I hadn't worked with a group of students that had so much raw talent," Foye said. "As a teacher, you really just want to set your students up for success in the future, and I hope this is a stepping stone for them."

Credit: Noblesville Schools
First-year Noblesville teacher Caitlyn Foye helped four of her students identify and publish four new novel gene sequences.

The students appreciated Foye as much as their names being published in print.

"Her coming in to teach here for her first year …. She knocked it out of the park," Kozakiewicz said. "She's super nice, cares about what she does and she's all in for us."

Josh Middleton and Brayden Colon both said their experience allowed them the rare opportunity to participate in college research projects as freshmen this year. Middleton attends Purdue, and Colon goes to IU.

"I really want to make a difference by doing research and learning what I'm learning," Middleton said.

Teachers say their profession is a calling — one Foye has never been prouder to have answered.

"I see them making the biggest difference in the medical field — not only for their individual patients someday," Foye said. "I see them doing research that will be really meaningful to our science community."

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