For 35 years, Children’s Hospital Oakland has been fast-tracking promising students into the sciences through a summer mentorship program.

Last Friday, in a typically no-nonsense symposium, the hospital presented this summer’s class describing their summer’s labors.

Teens still too young to vote displayed a familiarity with subjects likely foreign to most people.

Eleven students made oral presentations of their research and 32 more made poster presentations in the afternoon.

Tatiana Cheong, 17, a Holy Names High School senior, spent the summer working on three projects related to the prevalence of zinc deficiency, especially in developing countries.

“Zinc is very important to our bodies, especially our immune systems, metabolism and growth,” Cheong said in an interview.

Zinc deficiency is diagnosed by testing blood plasma, which can be expensive and difficult to store and transport in developing countries.

Cheong was working on finding solutions to collecting plasma so that data could be compiled to help shed light on the extent of zinc deficiency globally.

Zinc is found in meat and seafood or, for the vegans among us, nuts, she said. “We don’t need much but that doesn’t mean we can ignore it. Disease travels fast,” she said.

Cheong’s efforts have yet to produce a solution, she said, but the challenges encourage her “to continue to pursue this path to see if there’s more I can do.”

One of her Holy Names classmates, Melissa Cervantes, also 17, prepared a poster describing her nine weeks studying “Bone Quality by Trabecular Bone Score in Patients With Hemoglobinopathies.”

She won the best poster competition for a high school student.

“Being a part of CHORI was a great learning experience,” she said in an interview.

“I was able to explore my interest for science and get a feel for what it is like to be a real scientific researcher,” she said.

The summer research program at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute focuses on boosting more students into STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — studies.

It is the longest-running program of its kind, co-director Ellen Fung said in an interview, although Stanford University and other institutions have similar efforts.

The summer program is highly competitive, Fung said. This year’s class of 45 was selected from about 250 applicants, she said, all with GPAs well above 3.5, strong science backgrounds and internship experience.

But, she emphasized, “we’re also looking for the curious scientist. Not just the 3.8 students; one that’s done creative kinds of exploration, volunteered, been interested in the community.

“Science is not just about learning the science, but communicating what you’ve learned,” Fung said.

The program reflects the community UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland serves.

“Usually, we have one or two who are or have been patients at the hospital,” she said.

“All of the students in the program are underrepresented minorities, low-income, first in their families to go to college,” Fung said.

Over the past decade, 31 percent of its students have been African-American, 21 percent Latino and 21 percent Asian-American. Fifteen percent have been white.

This year, female students made up 70 percent of the group, as they have fairly consistently for the past decade, Fung said.

The summer research program’s goal, Fung wrote in an email, is “to encourage and expose students from diverse backgrounds to career opportunities in basic, clinical and community based biomedical research by offering exposure to mentored research.”

Close to 80 percent of the summer program students go on to graduate level education.

“I loved the symposium. I was able to share my research findings and learn about the other students’ projects,” Cervantes said.

Contact Mark Hedin at 510-293-2452, 408-759-2132 or mhedin@bayareanewsgroup.com.