Three St Matthew’s Catholic School students will be travelling to Italy in early September as part of a research project on how breast cancer is detected world wide.
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Jessica Lynch, Callan Double and Hayden Munro, have been part of a research mentor program with Professor Patrick Brennan from the University of Sydney.
The project aims to help students develop a strong set of science skills under the guidance of Professor Brennan and his research team.
During the last 12 months the students and Professor Brennan have been examining the efficacy of radiologists to detect and locate breast cancers on mammograms. Engaging in a number of activities including writing scientific project proposals, analysis of data and the preparation of scientific posters and journal articles and scientific conference abstracts.
The trip to Italy will give the students the opportunity to apply their newly learnt science skills to a real world experiment that can impact world wide breast cancer detection rates.
And provide the platform for them to develop a range of new skills, including the management and implementation of scientific experiments and communicating with a range of different medical scientists and professionals.
They will also visit the Elettra Sincrotone, an international research centre that relies on the principles of physics.
During the 10 day trip to Trieste the students will be responsible for implementing a scientific experiment that will examine the ability of Italian radiologists to successfully detect and locate breast cancers in mammograms.
Their role in this study will be to initially set up the experimental equipment, ensuring that the computer based experiment will run smoothly.
Throughout this time the students will have the full support of Professor Brennan, his experienced research team, and science co-ordinator at St Matthew’s Dr Louise Puslednik.
The students will present an oral presentation to Italian radiologists and medical community that will describe the research they have been undertaking in Australia.
When they return the students will be able to use the data from this Italian experiment to compare to Australian and other radiologists from across the world, and potentially write a scientific journal article in conjunction with Professor Brennan and his research team.