Saskatoon student rides fava bean project to national competition

A student from Saskatoon's Evan Hardy Collegiate has won a regional science competition, and now she'll take her project on fava beans to the national stage — and she's only in Grade 10.

Melody Song won the regional prize for the Sanofi Biogenius science competition, and she was given the award Thursday evening.

"I'm feeling absolutely shocked and I'm so excited to have accepted and received these absolutely high awards," Song said after getting her award.

While speaking with CBC News, Song said her idea for her project came from two disparate interests.

"I've always been interested in nutritious foods ... and I've always known a lot of information on molecular markers. So I wanted to kind of integrate both these projects together, and I guess that's how I came up with my project."

What did she do with the beans to earn the winning nod?

"I developed an EST (expressed sequence tag)-based molecular marker to detect or identify fava bean mutants with reduced levels of V-C (Vicine-Convicine)," she said. 

That's important because, according to Song, 400 million people in the world can't consume the beans due to a disease they have that prevents them from breaking down V-C, which is a glycoside.

The mutant fava beans — which Song can identify using the molecular marker she developed — can be consumed and broken down by those people's bodies because of the reduced V-C, she explained.

"This has applications in seed selection, as well as acceleration of breeding programs, especially in Canada, which is a leader in pulse crop breeding programs as well as production," she said.

As a pulse crop, fava beans fall into the legume family. 

Future science projects

Song thanked her mentors for their help and support, noting that they were instrumental in her completion of the project.

"There's not a too-overwhelming project that would make me back away from my science projects," she said when reflecting on what's next for her for research. 

"I like how people can use science to benefit others and help real world problems that occur globally. That's going to affect our generation and future generations to come," she said.

"In the future, I plan to pursue post-secondary education, which is going to be focused with sciences and biotechnology."

Song will present her project as part of the national competition on May 2 in Ottawa at the National Reserach Council Canada. If successful, she'll be presented with her award on May 3.