FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                        RELEASE NO. 07-10

CADET COLLABORATING ON MEDICAL RESEARCH PROJECT – March 3, 2010

WEST POINT, N.Y. – Cadet Woo Do, Class of 2011 from Everett, Wash., and Dr. John Kenneth Wickiser, an associate professor from the Department of Chemistry and Life Sciences and an associate of the Network Science Center at West Point, are three months into an 18-month study on how to treat bone growths in limbs of amputees.

Scientists from the Office of Naval Research, Carnegie Mellon and West Point are working together to produce a new treatment plan for amputees.

Do and Wickiser are working on one-half of the treatment: a genetic, Ribonucleic acid-based drug that halts the growth of painful bone spurs in areas of amputated limbs.

The duo are currently working in the laboratory and learning how to handle RNA in biological samples.  Once comfortable, they will begin designing the therapeutic RNA itself and develop candidate samples to test its usefulness.

Do, who hopes go into the medical corps as an Army doctor, has served as a research assistant on several projects that have ranged from biological to chemical in nature.

About West Point
Ranked the “Top College in the Country” by Forbes and “Top Public Liberal Arts College” by
US News & World Report, the U.S. Military Academy is a four-year co-educational federal undergraduate liberal arts college located 50 miles north of New York City.  The world's preeminent leader development institution, it was founded in 1802 as America's first college of engineering.  Its mission remains constant—to educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army.  For more information, go to www.westpoint.edu.