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Loudoun Teacher’s Father Wins Nobel Prize Vanessa Gutberlet
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oly cow! Congratulations to Jen’s dad!” The text message came across Jenifer Bluhm’s husband’s phone while the couple got ready for work at their home in Hamilton on the morning of Oct. 5. “I didn’t know what they were talking about,” Bluhm said. “So I went online and Googled my father’s name. It came back saying Nobel Prize winner. I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this can’t be real.’” It was. Her father, William C. Campbell, had jointly won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for developing parasite-fighting therapies. Campbell shares the prize—and $960,000— with Japanese biochemist Satoshi Ōmura. Together they discovered a therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites. According to a Nobel Prize press release, their drug, Avermectin, “has radically lowered the incidence of River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, as well as showing efficacy against an expanding number of other parasitic diseases.” Campbell, an expert in parasite biology who lives in North Andover, MA, has been recognized for his work throughout his career, but “this is a new level of recognition,” Bluhm said in
an interview with Leesburg Today. Bluhm has very early memories of her father’s work with parasites. As a child, she remembers him regularly visiting her school’s science classes with tapeworms displayed in glass jars. “When we were really little, that’s how we began to understand what parasites were and his kind of work,” she said. Still, Bluhm never caught the science bug. She instead had an interest in world cultures and languages, which led her to a career in teaching. “It’s been a good match,” said Bluhm, who’s taught French at Loudoun Country Day School for the past 11 years. However, father and daughter do share a love of, and talent in, art. They enjoy painting as a hobby, and Campbell has managed to combine his artwork with his work in science. Some of his paintings are artistic representations of parasites. “They are amazingly lovely,” Bluhm said with laugh. “You wouldn’t think that a parasite could be.” Her father is a strong believer in pursuing various areas of interest, she added. He believes “it doesn’t make you just a more interesting person, it makes you a better scientist.” Bluhm, the oldest of three children, said her father never pushed her to follow in his footsteps but told her to pursue her own passions. Sitting in her classroom Oct. 7, she teared up when she thought of his encouraging words.
Leesburg Today/Danielle Nadler
Jenifer Bluhm, shown in her classroom at Loudoun Country Day School, discusses her father’s work in parasite biology.
“I remember him saying, ‘It doesn’t matter what you go into and what you love, but once you’ve picked that, strive to be among the best at what you do.’” Bluhm has done exactly that in the classroom at Loudoun Country Day School, said Amy Warner, the school’s director of communications. She pairs her students with pen pals in France, takes them on tours of embassies in Washington, DC, and spends her summers traveling to maintain her own foreign language skills. “She has very high standards,” Warner said. “She has very fine character, and a gentle and fun sense of humor.” This is the second year in a row Loudoun County made Nobel Prize-related headlines. Just
a year ago, Eric Betzig, who works at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was recognized, along with two colleagues, for developing super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, a method that transcends the limitations of light microscopes. n Vanessa Gutberlet is from Loudoun County’s sister district, Main-Taunus-Kreis, Germany, and job-shadowed at Leesburg Today through the George C. Marshall International Center’s Student Partnership Exchange Program. Deputy Editor Danielle Nadler contributed to this story.
‘Count Day’ Shows Loudoun Has More Students Than Projected Danielle Nadler
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Loudoun School Board members talked full-day kindergarten options at their meeting Tuesday. See story at leesburgtoday.com/education.
‘This Can’t Be Real’
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oudoun County has 508 more kids in its public schools this year than initially projected, and 199 of those are just at one school. The school system’s annual enrollment report shows that on Sept. 30—the official “count day” in most Virginia public schools—Loudoun County Public Schools had 76,263 students. That’s an increase of 2,802 students, or 3.8 percent, over last year. The enrollment report was presented to the School Board at its regular meeting Tuesday. The Planning and Legislative Services Department underestimated enrollment by 508. The missed projections hit a handful of schools in the county’s newest neighborhoods particularly hard. Buffalo Trail Elementary School, near Aldie, was expected to have 837 stu-
dents this year, but instead is serving 1,036 students—14 above building capacity. Two miles north, projections showed Mercer Middle School not with 1,462 students, but with 1,584—234 more than building capacity—enrolled. Other schools that saw big gaps between projections and actual enrollments include Briar Woods High School in Ashburn (83 students more than forecasted), Arcola Elementary School near Aldie (80 more students than forecasted), Cardinal Ridge Elementary School in Centreville (77 more students than forecasted) and Sanders Corner Elementary School in Ashburn (59 students more than forecasted). A few schools opened with fewer students than expected. Creighton’s Corner Elementary, for example, is housing 82 fewer students than forecasted, for a total enrollment of 919. But leaders at that school are perhaps due for a break; they have managed enrollment that was larger than projections for the
past few years. Last school year, Creighton’s Corner housed 180 more students than forecasted and 150 students more than the building’s program capacity. The elementary schools in the Brambleton area, including Creighton’s Corner, will get some relief next school year when Madison’s Trust Elementary School opens near the intersection of Northstar Boulevard and Creighton Road. The School Board is set to begin the process to redraw the attendance zone boundaries Oct. 28. This year’s projection gap was the largest for the Loudoun school system’s Planning and Legislative Services Department in recent years. The year-to-year enrollment increase for the county’s public schools is more than 2,500 students. Last school year, its projections were short by 228 students. They were off by three students for the 2014-15 school year and short by 119 for the 2012-13 school year. n
Broad Run Students Win iGEM Awards
B Adriel Sumathipala
From left, siblings Marissa and Adriel Sumathipala are joined on the iGEM team by Nick Rozak and Fionn Desmond. Alicia Scott, another member, is not pictured.
road Run High School’s iGEM team won several awards at an international competition in Boston last month. The team was the only U.S. team to be nominated for the best iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) project award. It took home a silver medal for its project, and also won for best poster and best presentation. It was also nominated for Best Wiki, or best website. For its project, the group created a genetically engineered yeast to sustainably and cheaply treat Armstrong World Industries’ water
supply. Armstrong World Industries is an international construction materials manufacturer that sponsored the team. “We genetically engineered these yeast cells to produce an enzyme called amylase. Amylase breaks down starch molecules and removes the food source for this problematic bacteria that are affecting the ceiling tiles,” said Broad Run sophomore Marissa Sumathipala, who founded the team with her brother, Adriel. Marissa expects what they discovered to be put to good use by Armstrong World Industries. “Synthetic biology is really fas-
cinating,” she added. “You can use it for a wide variety of things, like create better cancer treatments or remove toxic chemicals from water and soil and everything in between.” Marissa and Adriel are joined on the team by students Fionn Desmond, Alicia Scott and Nick Rozak. The two team mentors are Tom Burkett and Lisa Scheifele of the Baltimore Under Ground Science Space, a molecular biology community lab. Loudoun-based companies Telos Corp. and Swan Legend Venture Capital also sponsored the team. Together, the three companies donated $9,400. n