Camille Champigny, a Grade 10 student at the École l’Odysée in Moncton, New Brunswick, has always been good at science and she is very keen to make it a career.

Now she can lay claim at age 15 to having contributed to scientific knowledge about the health dangers of pesticides.

Camille’s science teacher Eric Landry introduced her to Dr. Luc Martin at the University of New Brunswick to give her a taste of a real working lab. Dr. Martin agreed about her potential and involved her in his research into male infertility.

“Infertility is a growing problem for men in industrialized countries as new generations of men have a significant decline in sperm count and quality compared to previous generations,” he says. He believes increasing exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC) in plastics, paints, cleaning products, cosmetics — even in some food products — could be responsible for the decline.

Camille’s reaction: “I have a passion for the environment and people’s health, so I found Dr. Martin’s research very motivating,” she says. The project she proposed focuses on the interaction of pesticides in male reproductive functions.

Specifically, she tested the effects of carbaryl, a pesticide widely used in home gardens, on a group of cells from the testes called Leydig cells. These cells are responsible for producing testosterone – a hormone the body needs to make sperm.

She tried the carbaryl in a number of different concentrations and exposure times. Then she added a compound that caused any cells still alive to become fluorescent; the results were then read by a fluorometer.

Though the results were not what Camille expected – the carbaryl did not cause the cells to die in significant numbers – she and Dr. Martin say the experiment offered a great learning moment.

Eliminating exposure to carbaryl as a cause of cell death was a necessary and fundamental step in seeing how pesticides and other EDCs affect reproduction.

“Experiment is at the heart of the scientific process and Camille worked very hard on all aspects of the project,” Dr. Martin says.

And it involved a time-consuming series of procedures. Camille estimates she spent about six hours a week, but she had a great time.

“The best part was having access to the university labs and material,” she says, “It gave me hands on experience and an idea of what a career in research would be.”