COURTESY OF SIEMENS-FOUNDATION.ORG
Siblings Lucia and Philip Mocz created an entropy formulism that provides a new set of tools for the computer-aided identification of cancer.
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Mililani High School siblings win $50,000 for science project
Mililani High School siblings Lucia and Phillip Mocz won't have to worry as much about their college tuition, considering the $50,000 in scholarship money they won yesterday.
Lucia, a sophomore, and Phillip, a junior, added to their already impressive take with their prize in the Siemens National Competition in Math, Science, and Technology yesterday at New York University.
The Moczs' project, "Computer-aided Identification of Cancer from Photomicrographs from Entropy Analysis," had already won awards at the state science fair in April and another last month in the Siemens Western Region Competition, where they collected a silver medal and $6,000 in scholarships.
Lucia, who won second place in the state fair for the cancer project, has been working on it for about a year and a half, said mentor Dr. Andre Bachman, an associate professor at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii.
Bachman provided pictures of tissue biopsies for both cancer-stricken patients and a control, cancer-free group, he said.
"When it comes to the mathematics section, that's really the kids," he said.
The siblings used complex algorithms to create a computer program that could determine whether a tissue had cancer. Their project, which could save time and labor to help determine whether a patient has cancer, was successful 71 percent of the time.
Currently, an expert has to analyze the data and determine the presence of cancerous cells.
Phillip Mocz, who won the state competition this year for a mathematical analysis to determine the structure of the universe, joined his sister earlier this year to team up on the project, Bachman said.
He said the family has not yet returned from New York.
"I'm very impressed with them," he said. "They're both very well-rounded."
Lucia told the Star-Bulletin earlier this year that she chose the project because she "wanted to deal with a real problem affecting real people" and that she hopes to study music in college.
Both said their inspiration was their father, Gabor Mocz, a professor in biochemistry at the University of Hawaii and a colleague of Bachman's.
The two are no strangers to awards, either. Lucia won the top junior division prize at the state science fair in 2005, while Phillip won it in 2004.