Canmore high-school student dedicates her summer to helping spinal cord research

Spending the summer in a classroom sounds like a nightmare for most students, but Natalie Farrell has done just that and says it’s a dream come true.

The 17-year-old Canmore Collegiate student is one of 45 young Albertans selected to participate in the Heritage Youth Researcher Summer program.

Farrell has been assigned to a neuroscience lab at the University of Calgary where cutting-edge spinal cord research is taking place. The research team is investigating how signals travel along the spinal cord with the goal of improving the rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injuries.

“My very first day in the lab was exciting,” says Natalie. “My supervisor showed me a beaker full of what I thought was bubbling water, but it was actually artificially-made cerebrospinal fluid! This fluid encases the spinal cord and provides it with oxygen and food to keep the spinal cord alive. Imagine being able to do that in a lab … how cool is that?!”

Natalie’s interest in the central nervous system took hold last year in her Biology 30 class, which she was eager to take a year early in grade 11.

“With neuroscience there’s still so much that’s going to be learnt in my lifetime and I think that’s the top reason I’m so interested in it,” says Natalie.

The principal investigator in the lab, Dr. Patrick Whelan, says she’s demonstrated a real passion for learning and has a quality that makes her well suited for research.

“You need a raw curiosity, a "gee whiz" type of quality. This is really cool and from the very first day Natalie was here, even from the moment we were mixing chemicals, she said that is really cool”.

The 45 Alberta students who were accepted into the Heritage Youth Researcher Summer program, each received a two thousand dollar grant to work on research projects supervised by university research mentors. Students who apply for the program are required to have an 85% average and have completed core science subjects, give two teacher references and a community reference, and write an essay about health research that interests them.