MOUNT VERNON — For the second year in a row, Mount Vernon Middle School scholar Andrew Powell has earned a superior rating at the State Science Day.
Currently an eighth-grader, Powell also received a second-place Future Physician Scientist Award from The Ohio State University and The OSU Health Systems. That is a scholarship awarded for an outstanding project related to the field of medicine and health science.
Powell’s project explored the effects of cigarette smoke constituents on cilliary motion in Tetrahymena pyriformis, a single-celled organism covered in cillia and is frequently used in scientific research. Powell said his research was a continuation of last year’s project in which he looked at the effects caused by different types of cigarettes. This year he focused on two constituents of cigarettes; acetaldehyde and benzo (a) pyrene. Acetaldehyde occurs naturally in tobacco, and benzo (a) pyrene is given off as a result of burning any sort of organic matter.


