Camas senior spends summer in exclusive science program

Camas — Camas High School senior Monica Chang was one of 36 students from around the world to participate in the Summer Science Program in Biochemistry at Purdue University in Indiana, where she and others used wet lab techniques and modeling software to study an enzyme from a fungal pathogen and to design a small molecule inhibitor to protect crops from that fungus. The 39-day program, which has been around since 1959, also brings in guest speakers and lets students go on behind-the-scenes tours of local scientific and cultural sites. In 2017, Chang won the Oregon Bioscience Showcase Research Fast Pitch competition by giving a three-minute presentation in front of 200-plus people in the Empirical Theater at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.