Mimi Yen
New York
Stuyvesant High School
Mimi Yen, 17, of Brooklyn, closely mapped the region of the gene that affects mutant behavior called head plugging in a type of worm for
her Intel Science Talent Search animal sciences project. Hermaphroditic development in this worm species has eliminated the need for males
and made it difficult for natural selection to act on male behavior. Reduced selection may have resulted in the tendency of male worms to deposit
a mucous plug — normally deposited on the vulva of a hermaphrodite — on the excretory pore of other males when hermaphrodites are not present.
In addition to identifying the gene responsible for the behavior, Mimi also found that headplugging is controlled by hermaphroditic chemical
secretions and does not affect a male’s mating ability. She believes that studying mutant behaviors in simpler organisms will help us better
understand the genes that contribute to behavioral variations in humans. Founder of the research club at Stuyvesant High School in New
York, Mimi plays French horn and is on the school’s National Ocean Sciences Bowl team. She has volunteered at a local hospital and prepared
food for people too sick to cook. The daughter of Dat Kein Yen and Ai Ming Li, she was born in Honduras and is fluent in Cantonese.
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