Michael Mitchell, a senior at Brophy High School, was named a semifinalist in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science, and Technology.

Mitchell was one of only a handful of Arizona students who received the honor of advancing in one of the nation's most prestigious science competitions. Albert Shieh, a junior at Chaparral High School, and Anne Lee, a senior at Phoenix Country Day School, also advanced and won the team competition last month.

As an intern at Barrows Neurological Institute (BNI), Mitchell studies brain cancer under the guidance of Dr. Adrienne Scheck. His project entered into the Westinghouse competition looked at how a mechanism of gene silencing relates to brain cancer patient survival times. Gene silencing disrupts a cell's normal lifespan and allows a cell to become cancerous.

Like Shieh and Lee, Mitchell began his internship after being selected into the Scientific Enrichment Program for Students (SEPS). Drs. Scheck and Joan Rankin Shapiro of BNI started SEPS in 1990 to give students an opportunity to learn science hands-on.

To date, more than 130 SEPS students have participated in scientific research and won local, state, and national honors.

Every fall more than 80 high schools in the Valley are invited to nominate students to the SEPS program. Students are interviewed and many are chosen to work in research laboratories around the Valley, including BNI, TGen, Mayo Clinic, Arizona State University, Sonora Quest Laboratories, and St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center.

SEPS also conducts an afternoon cancer biology seminar and neuroscience laboratory tours twice a year for 160 students.

For Mitchell, the SEPS program was a valuable introduction to molecular biology.

"The internship program is good for the experience," he said. "You can see whether you like research."

Scheck said SEPS is always looking for more researchers who can mentor students in the lab.

"The availability of mentors is our only limiting factor," she said.

Anyone interested in finding out more about SEPS can contact Natasha Dennis at SEPS@CHW.edu.