By Matthew E. Milliken

mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684

DURHAM -- Last week, Lanair Lett's research project measuring how a certain gene contributes to insulin production made the grade.

No, Lett's work didn't win an A from one of his professors at the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics. Instead, it earned him a spot in the regional finals of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. That means that in one week, the Henderson native and 95 other high school students from around the United States will discuss their research in hopes of advancing to the national finals of the country's most prestigious teenage science prize.

Not bad -- especially since Lett had never conducted a research project before.

"I don't come from a very privileged school, to say the least, until I got to Science and Math," said Lett, who attended Southern Vance High School before transferring in mid-2008. (Science and Mathematics is a two-year state-run residential high school.) "And so I've really enjoyed the experience. I never saw myself doing research as a high school student."

When Lett arrives at the regional finals in Atlanta, he will see some familiar faces. North Carolina has seven regional finalists, of which five are from Lett's school. His classmates in the competition are Di Deng, Tian-Yi Jiang, Jinge Su and Patrick Yang.

That the Durham school has more finalists than any other in the nation shouldn't be surprising. Science and Mathematics students won the Siemens Competition in 2001, 2004 and 2008.

Choosing his research

Lett didn't have far to look in considering what to research. Lett investigated one small corner of the biological universe that pertains to diabetes. He and his mother have the disease, and his grandmother died of complications from it.

The senior's project investigated the relationship between the gene HDAC-1 and the growth of beta cells, which produce insulin. He tracked thymidine consumption -- an indirect way of measuring the replication of HDAC-1 -- by marking the chemical with tritium, a radioactive isotope. The research indicated that larger amounts of HDAC-1 corresponded with more beta cell growth and hence more insulin production.

The finding doesn't mean that a cure for diabetes is just around the corner, however. "We want to see how that gene [HDAC-1] affects other genes, and eventually develop this pathway for beta-cell growth, and then possibly ... treatment would be feasible then," Lett said. "So my project is just one of many that would have to take place before that would be an option."

The research was conducted over the summer under the mentorship of Jeffery Tessem, a postdoctoral fellow at Duke's Stedman Center for Metabolism and Nutrition. The project used both beta cells derived from a pancreatic cancer known as insulinoma and islets from rats. Islets are the part of the pancreas that contain beta cells.

"It took a lot of planning. But it was basically eight-hour days, seven days a week," said Lett, noting that the project took seven weeks. "So the hours accumulated quickly. ... There was no break."

Since finding out that his project was a regional finalist, Lett has been preparing for a Nov. 7 oral presentation that he will make at Georgia Tech. "I'll confess that ... oral presentations are pretty difficult for me, but I'm getting better, I'm working on it," Lett said.

His regimen involves discussing his research in front of panels of Science and Mathematics professors and students. "I just presented today and I got some pretty hard questions from some of the other research students here," he noted.