Brain Bee Challenge

This year, we had a number of our talented year 11 students compete in the Brain Bee challenge, an international neuroscience competition for high school students in Year 11 to learn about the brain and its functions, the latest discoveries in neuroscience research, dispel misconceptions about neurological and mental illnesses and find out about the exciting career opportunities brain research has to offer.

Two of our students, Bettie Lin and Lola McPhail made it through to the second round of the competition and were therefore invited to attend a neuroscience day at Auckland University medical campus. Throughout the day they heard from students working in the field, got to see some of the actual brains that have been donated to the university to help research neurodegenerative disorders and toured the lab spaces.

The standout of the day was the keynote speaker, Victoria Hawkins, an ex Springs student who has been researching chromosomal changes that occur in Alzheimer’s patients. She is also working on a project that uses gene editing to create sheep models of Fragile X syndrome in the hope of creating possible therapies for individuals that suffer from this condition. She gave a special shout out to Springs at the start of her speech and it was great to see the amazing things our alumni are doing.

Congratulations to Bettie and Lola for all your hard work!