COMMACK SCHOOLS

CHS senior Ishana C. is headed to D.C.!

Ishana, an aspiring neurosurgeon, on Thursday was selected one of 40 finalists internationally in the Regeneron Science Talent Search.

It marked the first time in a decade that CHS has produced a finalist in the prestigious competition.

The last finalist: Scott Massa, who graduated from CHS in 2015, and who is now an ophthalmologist resident at NYU.

Ishana earned $25,000 scholarship, on top of the $2,000 scholarship she previously had earned for being named one of 300 Regeneron Scholars earlier this month.

The top 10 will be selected on March 11, at the conclusion of a week-long event in Washington.

They are competing for more than $1.8 million in scholarships, with a top prize of $250,000.

The contest originally had 2,471 entrants — the largest pool of applicants since 1967.

Ishana’s project was entitled, “Understanding Neuronal Migration in Brain Development: The Role of Oligophrenin1 in Modulating Radial Migration of Pyramidal Neurons by Interaction With Pacsin2.”

She researched a protein in a gene that affects cognitive disabilities.

Commack has a proud tradition of students achieving in the Regeneron competition under the leadership of Jeanette Collette, Daniel Kramer and Andrea Beatty.

The high school has produced 13 other Regeneron Scholars in the past decade: Jonathan Zhang (2024), Soyoun "Ashley" Moon (2022), Kimberly Liao (2020), S. Shamtej Singh Rana (2020), Pragati Muthukumar (2019), Daniel Lee (2018), Anoop Singh (2018), Jordan Cooper (2017), Abby Cuomo (2017), David Li (2016), Mehtaab Sawhney (2016), Massa (2015) and Matthew O’Connell (2015).