Zach Bjornson-Hooper: Whiz Kid

Credit: Brian Cairns

Last year's whiz kid and cover boy, Zach Bjornson-Hooper, is now a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "My schedule has tightened up a lot since I became a student here," admits the biological engineering major-to-be (who's aiming for an additional degree in music). Still, that doesn't stop him from helping plan the next youth conference for the United Nations Environment Programme [3], an international forum on environmental conservation, as well as work a research job in a biotechnology lab on campus.

During his first semester at MIT, he was attempting to enhance cell-free protein expression with peptides created by his lab's director. This spring, he and a group of scientists have been exploring the microscopic goings-on of our complex olfactory systems, and Bjornson-Hooper's job is to optimize production of a specific protein integral to this smelly process. Not bad for a first year.

Next Still Daring 2007 profile > Carol Flexer [4]

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