A team of PHS students competed in an annual high school bioengineering competition run by the UC Berkeley Bioengineering Honor Society on April 5 and won third place. PHS competed in the BioEHSC (Bioengineering High School Competition) against 57 national and California teams including entries from top schools across the Bay Area.
Teams are comprised of high school students and a sponsoring teacher who are given advice and mentoring from a bioengineering student at UC Berkeley. The team from Piedmont High School — seniors Genevieve Hiller and Inaya Majid and juniors Kalyani Spieckerman, Laurel Minor, and Abigail Jacoby — were sponsored by PHS AP Biology teacher Shelley Seto-Rosen and mentored by Yomn Hammad, a UC Berkeley bioengineering undergrad. The team won third place in the video competition and took home a plaque.
The PHS group engineered a device entitled EDNA (Estrogen Detection and Non-Invasive Administration) that uses a noninvasive closed-loop system that tracks hormonal levels through a sensor. The sensor will connect to an app that sends information to a patch, administering estradiol to help women going through menopause. The device uses microfluidics to track estrogen levels. The patch administers needed estradiol in real time in order to ensure that estrogen levels remain stable and effective.
The BioEHSC is a research and design competition in which teams define a biological problem, complete research, and then propose an engineering solution to the problem. Seven weeks of preparation culminated in an in-person competition on the UC Berkeley campus consisting of a video submission, a poster session, an academic presentation, and an industry pitch.