Youth Making a Difference: Cancer research gives Washington grad Elijah Gorski confidence

Editor's note: For five weeks, we are profiling two young people each week who are making a difference in the South Bend region. Whether they are already in the spotlight or escaping much public attention for their efforts, these young people are putting in the work to make their neighbors' lives better. Check them out every Sunday and Tuesday online and Monday and Wednesday in print.

SOUTH BEND — In the summer of 2022, 15-year-old Elijah Gorski walked into the first day of his internship at the University of Notre Dame ’s Harper Cancer Research Institute and questioned to himself: Do I really belong here?

He had a case of imposter syndrome, Gorski said, as he began his first day in the Research Cures Cancer Corps (RC3) program . His chemistry teacher at Washington High School , Jillian Connolly, challenged him to apply for the position. As he looked the lab, he was shocked. He hadn't been in an actual research lab before, he said, and initially felt out of place.

“That was the first time I’ve gotten that far out of my comfort zone,” he said, reflecting on how much he's changed since then. His research skills and public speaking have improved. His confidence in himself and his own abilities has grown.

“It showed me that although things may look daunting, once you get into and start to understand it, it can be a lot easier than you imagined," he said.

Now, in his third year working in the lab, Gorski ran an experiment on his own. He donned his white lab coat, put on blue latex gloves and moved naturally, while also taking time to demonstrate some of his lab work.

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Everyone at the lab has been welcoming to him.

“I ended up right where I belonged," he said.

Understanding Gorski's cancer research

Gorski works in a lab run by Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor Katharine White, who grew up in South Bend and attended a South Bend Community School Corporation school.

“I have some relatives who have been diagnosed with cancer,” Gorski said. “My grandma survived multiple instances of cancer. This helps me understand what people are doing to help their situation."

White's lab studies how pH affects cell behaviors.

“In cancer, pH is dysregulated,” she said, saying its higher than in normal cells.

She described that cells divide into two daughter cells, which she said is important for sustaining tissues in our body. When division happens too much, called aberrant division, it leads to tumor development and growth.

“We know a lot about how high pH causes cancer cells to metastasize," White said. "We know that it blocks the ability of these cancer cells to die.”

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She said they don’t know the proteins involved, however, calling them molecular mechanisms.

“In order to trick cancer, we need to develop drugs that target proteins,” White said.

In Gorski's work, he tries to understand how individual proteins respond to those pH changes — how they change their structure and how they change their function.

“This is important for not only understanding the effects of these proteins, but also in order to target these aberrant behaviors in cancer, you need to identify the individual proteins to target with drugs,” White said.

The University of Notre Dame has 40 active labs across campus with work ranging from basic science to various types of engineering and physics. White is a chemist and biochemist.

"Cancer is so complicated," M. Sharon Stack, the Ann F. Dunne and Elizabeth Riley Director of the Harper Cancer Research Institute, said. “We really need to bring the minds from all across campus together to address some of these problems."

Stack said, there’s different labs that are focused on understanding cancer progression — from normal to cancer — and understanding different cancers, whether in a specific organ or metastatic cancer that spreads.

White’s lab tries to understand how a normal cell becomes a cancer cell to how that cell grows, divides and becomes deadly, Stack described.

“That understanding is essential so that we know how to kill it and we know what we’re trying to kill,” she said.

A lot of chemotherapy is so toxic to patients because they kill any cell that grows fast, she said, giving an example of hair falling out because it grows fast.

“If we can target things more specifically, just to those cancer cells and not the normal cells, ideally we’d be able to develop therapies that are going to be less toxic for patients,” she said.

The RC3 program immerses junior and senior high school students into cancer research through laboratory research with a mentor. The program's co-curricular enrichment activities offer information about financial literacy, college admissions, financial aid resources, the college experience and career awareness.

“The STEM field is largely white and male,” Stack said. “We want to change that. We want to increase the diversity — gender, racial, ethnic — in the overall STEM workforce. We’re starting our little piece of that right here.”

She said that by having people with different viewpoints, it provides access to a whole lot of ideas and experiences. People think differently and approach teamwork differently, she said.

“It really uplifts the whole enterprise to have people of different backgrounds,” Stack said.

A valued member of the team

Gorski’s internship carried over into the school year as he began juggling life between being an athlete in football and baseball, taking AP classes and working at the lab.

"It provided a longevity of interaction in the projects to allow him to contribute in the way he has," White said.

He would work on analyzing protein data while watching football film. He would receive help on AP pre-calculus questions from his lab mentor, Kobby VanDyck.

“He’s got his routine,” Gorski’s mother, Elizabeth Gorski, said. “He would be at Harper, go back to school for football or baseball and then come home and study. He’s got his priorities. He knows what he’s got to get done.”

In his junior year, Gorski received multiple awards at the 2023 Northern Indiana Regional Science and Engineering Fair , including the Best Abstract Award, Society for In Vitro Biology Award, a first place ribbon, the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps Office of Naval Research Award and the IUPUI School of Science 3rd Place Scholarship, which included a $1,000 award renewable for four years. He also received the Notre Dame Biology Department.

“I did well presenting my research overall and gained a new confidence in myself,” he said. Initially, Gorski said, he had a hard time speaking in front of people. His first presentation took hours of preparation, he said.

He still has a hard time speaking in front of people, but said, “I’m more comfortable with being uncomfortable."

In his junior year, Gorski started working on more independent parts of the projects and was a co-author on a recently submitted paper, White said.

“It just became clear that he was really contributing significantly to our work,” White said.

Taking the next step

VanDyck recalled, in Gorski's first year, he asked him his thoughts about college.

“He said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so,’” VanDyck said.

“Wait, really?” VanDyck asked him.

VanDyck played the biggest role in teaching him everything he knows, Gorski said. His mentor taught him how to think critically and to persevere through times he thought he might fail through messing up an experiment.

“Whenever that occurs," Gorski said VanDyck told him, "You’re human. You’re going to make a mistake. It is OK. You know what you did wrong. You’re able to fix it. We can move forward.’”

In the fall, Gorski will attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a full-ride scholarship. Through his internship with the lab, Gorski realized he likes research, setting him down the path of majoring in biochemistry.

“This has helped me solidify what I want to do as a career,” he said.

The internship taught him to want more for himself. Through his work, he said, he had the "initial spark of knowing he was capable of being more than just a high school student."

He watched the success of his colleagues in the lab.

“If I follow in their footsteps, I can be just like them," he said.

Gorski recently learned his college housing assignment. He immediately ran to his computer to see where it was and what classes were nearby, he said.

“It’s bittersweet,” he said. “Everything that I’ve known for the past 17 ½ years, I’m going to be leaving and opening up a new chapter.”

He'll miss Washington High School, right by his home, and the Philly flatbread and beignets from Chicory Cafe , which he was just introduced to by someone at the lab. The internship widened his knowledge of South Bend, beyond the city's westside, and he's realizing there's more out there.

“For me, there’s always something new to find in South Bend,” he said.

Gorski's father, Darryl Lax, said he doesn't know what the future holds for his son.

“He has a will to make a difference. It drives him,” Lax said.

Now, at 17 years old, Gorski thought about the person he was before he started working at the lab.

“I would not recognize myself,” he said. “This has been great to help me become a step closer to who I want to be one day.”

Email Tribune staff writer Camille Sarabia at csarabia@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Youth Making a Difference: Cancer research gives Washington grad Elijah Gorski confidence