Joel Kuper

Kuper's program idea, "The Wyoming Ethnobotany Project," provides students with opportunities to use biotechnology techniques to evaluate potential therapeutic properties of Native American medicinal plants. This unique blending of botany, molecular biology, chemistry, history and sociology gives students lab and field work possibilities that immerse them in the real world of scientific research. Through background analysis, regional experts and personal interviews with tribal elders, science students will select plants to investigate. They will research the plant extract's impact on physiological aspects of protein production in tissue culture and analyze the effectiveness of the extracts. So far, students have found that pine bark extract is an effective agent in the reduction of a-synuclein, a protein associated with Parkinson's disease, along with other findings. Since the program's inception, 13 projects have been sent to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) and many students have received significant scholarships and internships. Kuper resides in Greybull.