Luis builds rockets, computers, and robots. He also plays guitar, swims, and rides mountain bikes. In the future, Luis would like to become an engineer. "I enjoy building and programming and like to see what I create working as planned," he says.
Luis' mentors are his parents, who are scientists themselves and who have encouraged his scientific pursuits.
While watching television, Luis saw an ad for a skincare product containing copper. He knew that the idea behind the product was legitimate, because copper can cross-link proteins such as collagen to cause them to clump together and, in this case, make skin look firmer. However, the lotion would cause other proteins to clump as well. This is a problem, because protein aggregation is linked to motor neuron diseases and cataracts. Luis decided to test the metals found in cosmetics to see what effects they had on various proteins.
At the drugstore, Luis found a hair dye containing lead acetate and another with hydrogen peroxide, as well as the copper-containing lotion he'd seen advertised. With the use of machines at a lab, the chemicals were extracted from the products. Those chemicals were mixed with three different proteins—one from a cow, one from bacteria, and one from a chicken. Luis discovered that each chemical did cause protein aggregation—sometimes at high levels, demonstrating that the metals in cosmetics could lead to an increased risk of a disease caused by protein aggregation.
