PALOS VERDES, CA — While so many 13-year-olds spend their time scrolling social media, Mika Nonaka of the Rancho Palos Verdes-based Astra Nova school spends her time designing experiments to identify the effects of microgravity on coronary plaque buildup.
“If we’re planning to explore and conquer space in the future, we have to know the effects of space for one of the top sources of death,” Mika wrote in her proposal.
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Genes in Space awarded Mika with a Junior Scientist award this month for her project that seeks to explore the effects of microgravity on atherogenesis, or the way plaque forms and causes coronary artery disease.
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Mika was one of five students given the award and her project was chosen from more than 820 proposals submitted to Gene in Space’s 2023 competition. Mika attends Elon Musk’s online Astra Nova school, born at SpaceX and later evolved from Ad Astra School in Rancho Palos Verdes.
The purpose of the competition was for students to propose biological experiments that utilize instrumentation on the International Space Station. The winning experiment will be performed by astronauts aboard the ISS.
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“This is one of those students that I think has the potential to do something extraordinary one day,” Mika’s teacher Trudi Hoogenboom said.
Mika said her inspiration for her experiment stemmed from the fact that coronary artery disease is the third leading cause of death in the country. The experiment seeks to track modified lipoproteins and cytokines, which encourage atherogenesis, to see how gravity effects molecular interactions during plaque formation.
Mika said her main objective for the experiment is to find out if the risk of coronary disease becomes higher or lower in space.
For her winning experiment, Mika will receive a prize package that includes a P51 Fluorescence Biotechnology Toolkit, which is used for viewing fluorescent molecules, for her school so students can use ISS biotechnology in their own classrooms.
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