Local high school student investigates MSG’s impact on the brain

This summer Michelle Ah-Seng has become a seasoned expert on MSG and what it does to brain cells. So much so that, these days, she quietly worries when she sees her brother eating potato chips. Ah-Seng is participating in the 2008 Heritage Youth Researcher Summer (HYRS) Program, funded by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. She is spending the summer doing research in the lab of Naweed Syed, PhD, a neuroscientist in the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine.

“I didn’t really know what MSG did until this summer,” says Ah-Seng, a Grade 11 student from Cochrane High School. “I’ve also learned that research allows you to get creative. And it’s empowering when you are doing something important. Research is very open. Everyone is learning and trying to help each other.”

Ah-Seng is investigating the impact of monosodium glutamate, a food additive commonly known as MSG, on brain cells. Her research measures how exposure to MSG affects how brain cells grow and how they communicate with each other. Studies around the world have explored the health risks of MSG and its relationship to retinal degeneration, obesity, brain lesions and degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and ALS.

“This work that Michelle is doing is quite remarkable. Her findings are worthy of publication in a scientific journal,” says Naweed Syed, PhD, professor and head, cell biology and anatomy, University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine. “Heritage has planted the seeds with Michelle. She has had the taste of discovery and she has created something that will live on in our lab.”

Syed has invited Ah-Seng to return to his lab next summer and continue her research. Ah-Seng is heading into Grade 12 at Cochrane High School where she has already completed Biology 30. “I love to present students with opportunities and watch them fly,” says Stephanie Bennett, a science teacher from Cochrane High School. “Students like Michelle have so much to offer. They believe that anything is possible.”

The six-week HYRS Program gives 22 top Grade 11 students hands-on research experiences in laboratories and clinics at the University of Calgary.

“I see the future of science in these eager young faces,” says AHFMR Interim President and CEO Jacques Magnan, PhD. “Our role as a foundation is to support excellent people—from students to senior researchers. The HYRS program gives students first-hand exposure to health research with some of the finest scientists in the world.”