DURHAM, N.C.-Ava Grace Cummings, a member of the Lumbee and Coharie tribes in North Carolina, recently placed second in the national 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search.
The 18-year-old high school senior's prize-winning project was researching Native American myopathy, also known as the muscle disorder stac3. Cummings told WTVD reporters in Raleigh, N.C. that the subject was near to her heart. She said her goal was, "Just bringing more resources and more advocacy and more awareness to medicine within these areas. I was able to contribute to that by looking at this disease that's specific to...