Kapolei High School junior Jennifer Wong’s discovery might have saved her father’s life, said her physics teacher, Estan Reynon.

Wong, who lost her 67-year-old father to liver cancer when she was 11, identified a method to detect liver cancer early.

"I wanted to do something to try to make a change, so other kids like me" would not lose their parents, she said.

Wong is one of 594 students competing Monday to Wednesday in the Hawai‘i Academy of Science’s 55th Hawai‘i State Science & Engineering Fair at the Hawai‘i Convention Center.

The fair, open to the public from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, showcases 467 projects from 76 public, private and home schools statewide. Winners from the state and district fairs will compete in May in the prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh.

Wong originally wanted to inject mice with palmitic acid (found in cheese, milk and meat) and insulin to see if they contribute to developing fatty liver disease, but couldn’t find a lab and used cultured cells instead.

What she found was people with obesity and/or diabetes may progress to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a fatty liver disease resembling alcoholic liver disease.

She concluded obesity and diabetes are possible risk factors for getting nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which predisposes people to liver cancer or cirrhosis.

Wong hopes to receive a scholarship for her project, so she can reach her goal of becoming a doctor who can diagnose patients at early stages of disease.

Kauai High School junior Noelani Murray’s research, meanwhile, may have the answer to lowering the cost of producing gasoline.

She tested whether sodium nitrate, urea or a combination of the two increases oil production in freshwater algae to create an economical biofuel.

Algae gasoline was going for $8 a gallon last year, she said. "We’re hoping to get it down to $3 a gallon."

Murray said she likes life sciences and has a passion for helping people. She wants to combine those interests to be an occupational therapist.

"I like the biology of it, but I’d rather help people than do lab tests," she said. "The judges always get disappointed when I say I’m not going to be a biofuel researcher. I find it really fun. I love to present my work. I look at it more as a hobby than as a career."

Hawaii’s students at last year’s international fair placed fourth in math, fourth in physics and astronomy, and earned a special award in electrical engineering.

Punahou School senior Travis Le’s project placed fourth in physics and astronomy at the international fair last year.

"The (recent solar) flare that we had was predicted by one of the hot spots I determined," he said.

He hopes to make it to the international event for the fourth year in a row with his project on forecasting geomagnetic storms using an artificial network.

"What I really like about science fairs is you get to develop a lot of friends," said Le, who’s kept in touch with them. "It’s just cool to see what they’ve done."

Kathy Lin, Highlands Intermediate School life science teacher, said she encourages students to "go investigate a problem that you’re interested in."

When students learned about rat lungworm disease from a Star-Advertiser article, they wanted to find ways to prevent the disease from spreading in the school’s aquaponics garden.

A team designed an entire system, including a prototype for a rat trap using wires and coils to zap its victims, and methods for eliminating slugs and snails that spread the disease.

"They spent hours and hours, weekends, interviewing experts at the University of Hawaii, on their spring break and Christmas break," Lin said of her students’ devotion.

"It’s getting kids in general to get excited about science, technology, engineering and math," said Lin, who went to the state and international fairs as a high schooler.

The science fair is toughest but best because it employs reading, writing and analysis.

Kapaa High School science teacher Jim Cox said, "I see kids just stepping up. The level of inquiry in their projects, the level of rigor … is incredible."

The fair also "allows students to interact with other students who are also diving into the deep rigors of scientific investigation," he said. "These kids have friends from China and all over the world. It’s larger than science. It’s going into a social networking thing for the rest of their lives."

Cox tells his students "their future depends on people in their generation being critical thinkers, problem solvers and innovators. They’ve got to be able to solve problems that we don’t even know what the questions are."