by Katie Vasquez
Science has always been Juan Valeciana’s favorite subject.
“I enjoy doing this and just finding something new, something that’s never been done before,” said Valenciana, a senior at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens.
The senior transferred to St Francis Prep from a public school for a higher quality education.
“It lacked a lot of opportunities. and I came to St Francis Prep because of all the opportunities,” said Valenciana.
One of those opportunities included applying for the Regeneron Science Talent search, the country’s longest running and most distinguished STEM competition for high school seniors.
“It’s really known as the Junior Nobel prize,” said Fran Jimenez, the associate director of science research at St. Francis Prep.
The Queens student picked Alzheimer’s research for his project, spending more than a year studying data sets and submitting his findings.
“Amyloid beta is the hallmark for Alzheimer’s disease, and that’s one of the things that I look into,” said Valenciana.
For him this assignment wasn’t random, Juan’s paternal grandfather, Alberto, suffers from the disease.
“When I first started talking to him, it was like normal family topics,” said Valenciana, “and then the next day he’s talking about the exact same topics. It’s almost like he’s not forming any new memories.”
Now, he’s on a path to study Alzheimer’s.
“I wanted to develop some solutions, maybe help them eventually one day,” he told Currents News.
The St. Francis Prep senior didn’t make it to the final round but he still beat out 2,500 students from across the US.
“This year, we are the only Catholic school in all of New York City to have one. The only school in all of Queens, including public, to have one of these prestigious scholars,” said Jimenez.
Now Valenciana wants to continue his research, hoping one day there will eventually be a cure.
“It really decreases the quality of life for both people that have Alzheimer’s and people that have to take care of people that have Alzheimer’s,” he explained.
Valenciana will graduate this year, he hopes to study biomedical or mechanical engineering at his top choice college, Georgia Tech.