In the opening scene of the movie “The Social Network,” the Mark Zuckerberg character tell his soon-to-be-ex girlfriend that she doesn’t need to get home to study. Why? You go to BU, the socially-inept Harvard lad tells her.

My BU class rolled their eyes when we watched that scene in a session on film reviews. (Let that serve as my disclosure.) But, if all goes well for Kyle Allison, a College of Engineering PhD candidate, the Terriers have one over Harvard. And, it will be in the lab, not on the ice.

Allison is one nine graduate students who yesterday presented their work to a panel as part of the annual Collegiate Inventors Competition. More here from the university’s BU Today website.

Allison (ENG’12), a College of Engineering PhD candidate, is one of nine graduate finalists (working on six projects) in the contest, which drew some 100 entries from around the United States and Canada. The sole BU student among the finalists, Allison was tapped for his invention of a simple and inexpensive therapy for persistent infections, a pervasive health problem worldwide.

Persistent infections are caused by bacteria that go into hibernation, only to revive later and wreak havoc. They play a role in bacterial pneumonia, which is the number one killer of children worldwide, and they are a cause of chronic staphylococcus infections such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). They are particularly hard to treat, because the dormant bacteria do not absorb the antibiotics commonly used to treat infections.The Boston Herald did a story on the contest. The Harvard team, which invented a new surgical drill, gets profiled. Allison gets mentioned.

Check out that project and the other finalists here.