In 10th grade, she read about the topic independently and learned that there’s a much lower incidence of the disease among populations that consumed the “Mediterranean diet,” emphasizing fruits and vegetables, nuts, grains, olive oil, chicken and seafood (as opposed to red meat), plus a glass or two of red wine. “Clearly, diet has an impact on pathology,” she says. She later learned that there is only a 2% incidence of Alzheimer’s among the population in India. So how can one explain this? She explains that three factors have the greatest impact on health: genetics, environment and diet. The thing that people can best control is diet, and Indians do an excellent job of including a wide range of spices in their food. Her research exposed that turmeric, anise, cumin and chili pepper are the ones that have the greatest effects on amyloid peptides, the amino acids that are responsible for clogging neural pathways and creating the mental deterioration that is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s. Forgive her as she veers off into graduate level conversation, but next she calculated the percent of aggregation in samples of capsaicin (the active ingredient in chili pepper) and curcumin (active ingredient in turmeric) and looked at the effects of these polyphenols from the spices on the aggregation of the amyloid beta peptide 1-40 (a reference to the peptide’s length and number of amino acids). What she learned, when translated into the greater vernacular by an attentive reporter, is that these spices can break down the agents that cause Alzheimer’s deleterious symptoms. The challenge is how to make a large enough concentration of them bio-available in the brain to do their work. The blood-brain barrier prevents a direct treatment route. At age 15, Swathi succeeded in gaining access to the CWRU labs where she was able to implement her ideas. When others saw her results, they were highly impressed, and graduate students continued pursuing her research and expanding on it after she left. Last summer, Swathi worked in the Harvard Medical School – Massachusetts General Hospital’s lab for genetics and aging research. It’s the best place in the country to join others involved with Alzheimer’s research since it’s basically ground zero for a concentration of stellar minds focused on the issues. What she learned there involved molecular biology – “the forefront of research,” she says and an advance beyond her previous studies that were trained on chemistry. She learned the basis for the disease, before it progresses. She was offered a “lifetime key” to the labs there, implying that there’s an open invitation for her to return. Despite this monumental accomplishment, she has every intention to attend college first. Her new interest lies with bioinformatics, the “crossroads of science and computer science,” to use her description. “It incorporates mass amounts of data from which you can see patterns. It tells you what works and what doesn’t.” This year, for science fair competitions, she expanded on a previous winning project dealing with spice components and she repurposed her results. With the knowledge she acquired concerning protocols, buffers and concentrations needed for certain procedures, she was able to decompose some studies. What she likes about her new work is how it’s revolutionary in its interdisciplinary approach. “We’re getting more information and using it faster,” she says. In her new project, she’s able to demonstrate how well the active ingredients in tamarind and anise perform in studies. Her passion is to create a compound that will have enough bioavailability to treat the disease. “I want to be part of curing Alzheimer’s,” she states. “We just need one innovation to set everything in motion.” In her excitement as she details her intentions, she proudly flashes an image displayed on her phone, not a selfie, but…of an amorphous group of shapes that are plaque growing on neuronal clusters. Swathi also mentions that a side interest is electrophysiology. As she explains it, it’s a blending of circuits and neuroscience, where voltage across neurons can be calculated. What she enjoys about the subject matter is the lovely logic of it all. “Things just work. But you need to figure out how to keep them working.” Swathi is not without a secret guilty pleasure, and that rests with high fashion. She reads Vogue magazine religiously and reveres its editor, Anna Wintour. When she was younger, she also designed and colored dresses for fun, and she recently saved up enough money to buy a pair of Prada shoes on sale. “They are my pride.” She wears them for science fair presentations and any other time she dresses formally. Since making an independent study of Swathi is fun, some other random facts concerning her accomplishments include her love of fiction, which led her to read all of Agatha Christie’s books by 6th grade. She also declares her ongoing dedication to Jane Austen – “her language has a weight to it not seen so much now.” In 7th grade, she memorized (and can still recite) a long passage from Utopia by Thomas More, which made her reevaluate how she thinks about society, and how “we create the very people we despise.” This entire article is a lengthy digression from what is actually the occasion for devoting space to the singular Swathi. She recently won the prestigious MIT Think Scholars award for an invention proposal she (Continued on next page.) March 2016 n Beachwood Buzz 9 April 2016 n Beachwood Buzz 9 April 2016 n Beachwood Buzz 9