Martin Y. Fan of Plano receives Honorable Mention for Goldwater Scholarship

ST. LOUIS, MO (05/03/2011)(readMedia)-- Martin Y. Fan, son of Shirley and Philip Fan of Plano, Texas (75025), recently received an honorable mention for the 2011-2012 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.

Two Washington University in St. Louis received the prestigious national scholarship, with Fan receiving an honorable mention.

The Goldwater Scholarship is considered one of the most prestigious awards for undergraduates planning careers in the sciences, engineering or math.

The U.S. Congress established the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation in 1986 to honor Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, who served in the U.S. Senate for 30 years.

The Goldwater Foundation, a federally endowed agency, awarded 275 scholarships for the 2011-2012 academic year, selecting recipients on the basis of academic merit from a pool of 1,095 undergraduate sophomores and juniors nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.

Fan is an Arts & Sciences junior majoring in chemistry.

His current research, with Daniel S. Ory, MD, professor of medicine and of cell biology and physiology, focuses on screening mouse tissue samples for biomarkers of Niemann-Pick Type C disease.

He was a member of the Department of Biology's inaugural Phage Hunters class (Bio 191/192) in 2008, a yearlong research course for freshmen in which they isolate and characterize novel phages - viruses that infect bacteria. He and 12 others in that class were co-authors of a journal article on their research

Fan, an American Chemical Society Outstanding Junior Chemistry Student Award recipient, serves as an academic mentor in organic chemistry at Cornerstone and volunteers at the Saint Louis Science Center.

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