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17-year-old wins 100k for creating cancer-killing nanoparticle
- rickdale 15y agoJust 100k? Seems like a small sum for something that could potentially help cure cancer.
- ukdm 15y agoIt's not about the money though, is it? Imagine being 17, working on a project you are really passionate about, and then someone saying well done with 100k. Then think about what the coverage of your achievement will do for you, opening doors to the future you desire so much. The cash is just a nice extra I'd imagine.
- sp332 15y agoIt's the top prize from this particular competition. Patent licensing comes later :)
- tomjen3 15y agoIf it cant cure cancer then it isn't likely to be worth much. If ti does cure cancer, she will make a fortune through patent grants.
- luriel 15y ago> could potentially help cure cancer. Sorry for being pedantic, but much harm is done by this misconception. Nothing can 'potentially cure cancer', cancer is hundreds if not thousands of (often) very different diseases. Also put another way: cancer is simply the result of evolution at the cellular level. You can't 'cure' evolution, all you can do is try to implement some 'population control' strategies that will work (for a while) for certain genetic variants.
- majmun 15y agocancer drives evolution? [[citation needed.]] besides, nobody is asking to cure cancer in all population for all times. but in specific individual. who may or may not reproduce later in life. EDIT: don't need to downvote me being curios. if i didn't ask, this guys who answered would have less chance to post this usefull stuff . so i'm somewhat beneficial to this.
- phillmv 15y agoNo, you got it wrong. Evolution drives cancer. >besides, nobody is asking to cure cancer in all population for all times. but in specific individual. who may or may not reproduce later in life. Seriously? Go back and re-read what the GP said.
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- bluemetal 15y agoPretty sure he didn't imply that cancer drives evolution. wikipedia on cancer: "A large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body.... Cancer occurs when problems in the genes of a cell prevent these controls from functioning properly. These problems may come from damage to the gene or may be inherited, and can be caused by various sources inside or outside of the cell" I think he implied that cancer is an inherent flaw in the gene based reproduction used by complicated organisms. That our genes' ability to mutate, which introduces new and evolutionarily selectable attributes during sexual reproduction, can play up because of things like "tobacco use, infection, radiation, lack of physical activity, poor diet and obesity, and environmental pollutants.", and lead to cancer. I'm not saying it's totally 100% correct, although I suspect it is close, just explaining what I think he meant.
- DanBC 15y agoIt shows there is potential for other funding: getting a wider variety of student into Math Olympiad is one example.
- mikedmiked 15y agoHere is what I believe to be an informative comment on reddit about the subject: http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/n4hnw/now_im_proud/c367wtq http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/n4hnw/now_im_proud/c3...
- eggywat 15y agoJust enough money to cover her college tuition me thinks
- mikedmiked 15y agoWell it is actually a scholarship, as shown by the over-sized cheque in this image: http://i.imgur.com/qIFgX.jpg http://i.imgur.com/qIFgX.jpg ^ (please excuse the borderline-racist meme on the second half of that image, it is not mine.)
- artursapek 15y agoI love how an HNer was just forced to use a horrible meme from reddit because it has the biggest reference photo available
- thebooktocome 15y agoStereotypical Asian Father is much older than reddit.
- artursapek 15y agoOk, well that particular one is from reddit
- alexholehouse 15y agoSans racism (though sadly not sans the grammatically incorrect and non-existent contraction, "she've") http://imgur.com/W0WuJ http://imgur.com/W0WuJ
- oldcigarette 15y agowhy is everyone so excited by some asian female's fake science
- carldall 15y agoNews like these are fantastic. I often wonder how much time and resources mankind looses because there're so many young people in third world countries who are very smart and can ask the right questions, but who will never be able to gain the necessary education to be able to commit their fantastic innovations to society. Imagine how much further ahead, as a whole, we could be if the education and standard of living of the first world would be the same all over the world.
- hopeless 15y ago"Her dream job is to be a research professor"? It sounds like she's already better than most research professors! Well done that girl!
- bluedevil2k 15y agoI read a disturbing stat in the WSJ on Saturday - it pointed out that 20% of school's resources are geared towards learning disabled, developmentally challenged students and "low achieving students", while only 0.5% is devoted to talented and gifted students. The article blames this on the increasing costs of adhering to all the national and state laws regarding disabled children, while another argument could be made that schools are more concerned about obtaining minimum scores on standardized tests to receive funding. It may seem completely insensitive to argue against helping disabled students, but it seems to be happening at the expense of the gifted students. When you read articles like this one, you realize that the people who move society forward in leaps and bounds, the ones who create great businesses, create new products, discover new medicines are predominantly the talented and gifted ones. If we as a nation are making a decision to cut funding to these gifted students, are we at the same time making a decision that jeopardizes the advancement of our society as a whole.?
- dorkitude 15y agoCheck out the book "Genius Denied"
- euroclydon 15y agoNot exactly related, but HomeSchool Baby! It's SO nice to just opt out of the whole discussion about what the school system should be doing for my kids. I've got friends who are selling houses, going to school board meetings, essentially begging the government to educate their kids well.
- roadnottaken 15y agoworst. Mobile. Layout. Ever.
- ytNumbers 15y agoA better article on this story includes this quotation: "Zhang says it could take 25 years between clinical trials and other steps before her research is helping patients." To prevent a jillion people from dying while awaiting treatment, maybe someone could bankroll a $100K "Bring a Product to Market in Less Than 25 Years" science competition. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/05/calif-teen-takes-100k-national-science-prize/ http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/05/calif-teen-ta...
- polyfractal 15y agoAnd in 15 years we would have a similar post on the internet about how someone should bankroll a competition that increases the safety of these drugs that are flooding the market with heinous side effects. Clinical trials take so long because there are so many regulations about safety. You can argue that cancer patients are going to die anyway, so let them decide to take whatever drugs they want. On the other hand, this opens the most vulnerable people up to those that have the most to gain from exploiting them. There is a lot of red tape involved in getting a medical drug to market, but a lot of it is there for good reason.
- epistasis 15y ago>Clinical trials take so long because there are so many regulations about safety. Clinical trials take so long because it takes so long to perform the study. Clinical trials cost so much because of regulations, and because of sparing no expense to make them happen more quickly.
- polyfractal 15y agoEh, I'm not sure that is a distinction you can really separate. The regulations require five phases of progressively more difficult requirements, full double-blind trials, etc. Do you really think companies are going to take the time to do proper, five phase trials if it wasn't required?
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- DonnyV 15y ago100k....thats it? No TV spot on a morning show or Letterman? This is why kids look up to sports stars and reality show stars, incentives are all wrong. Kim Kardashian just got married and divorced within 60 days and made 18 million! Yes I understand this form of career is not about fame and notoriety but kids don't know that until there older. The only thing they know is Kim Kardashian just made a boat a load of money for marketing her wedding and selling tv spots and not for studying hard and curing a diseases. They should of given her 1 million, so she doesn't ever have to think about money. Frees her to try riskier projects and ideas.
- simonbrown 15y ago$1M is not enough to never have to think about money.
- igravious 15y agoTell that to someone on $2 a day and see what they say. Tell that to kids who have to literally wade through garbage looking for plastic to earn a living. Tell that to those who are starving in Somalia. Doesn't a little alarm bell go off in your head at all when you something like that is on the tip of your tongue?
- zasz 15y agoNo, not really. A million dollars in the United States isn't enough if you have multiple people depending on you, like children or elderly parents, or siblings in trouble, or if you yourself develop a debilitating disease, or get into a car accident. I'm sure it's more than enough for someone in Somalia, but I don't think the OP lives in Somalia.
- igravious 15y agoWant to add any more conditions? The original poster said, "$1M is not enough to never have to think about money." and I think that statement given the levels of poverty, inequality and injustice on this globe is frankly disgusting. Vote me down all you want, it's a cliche that the truth is a bitter pill but there you go. In the normal course of events one million dollars would be riches beyond their wildest dreams for most people on this planet and would let anybody in normal circumstances live out the rest of their days very very comfortably. Unless, they are greedy. In which case, nothing would be enough.
- polyfractal 15y agoThis is very cool, but the article is also very light on details. I have some experience with this competition and the field. Intel ISEF is like the world championship of science fair projects. Its a very cool competition and a wonderful experience. I attended the 2003 ISEF in Portland, Oregon for my project on distributed computing. Hands down the best experience I had in high school. However, there is a huge disparity between the projects in medicine/biology and everything else. I completed my project entirely on my own with no mentors. Many other CS and engineering projects were similar. The projects in medicine and biology, however, were conducted at a local university under the guidance of faculty and staff, simply because these experiments are not something you can perform at home. They also raked in a disproportionate amount of the awards. Having switched to biology in college and now working in a lab post-graduation, I've seen the type of work most undergrads and high-schoolers perform. Even if they are intellectually committed, much of the work is actually performed by others in the lab. Undergrads, and especially high-schoolers, often serve as support roles rather than investigators. Obviously this varies to some degree depending on the lab. My point: Awesome that this student won, and awesome that this is helping to guide her into biology. But, I doubt she did most of the work. Nanoparticle treatment of cancer is not exactly a new idea, so she is likely working under a post-doc who has been working on this for some time. Looking back at my post, this comes across very curmudgeonly. Perhaps I'm just disappointed that ISEF winners tend to be those helping out professional projects rather than those who design and build the project entirely on their own, or with minimal mentor help. Edit: to clarify my point, assume a HS student gets out of school at 3pm and work until 5pm, five days a week. That's a lot for a HS student. Unfortunately, 10 hours a week isn't going to get anything done in biology. A single western blot takes longer than 6 hours to run. Hell, I work 50+ hours/week and progress is still very slow.
- gujk 15y agoThese high school placements into university labs are a classic example of how privilege plays out, converting socio economic status into plausible credentials. Connected parents get glamorous internships for their kids that massively overstated the kids' contributions to and translate into elite college placements. No one can say these kids aren't smart and deserving, but what about kids who are also smart and deserving but not related to researchers or their friends? I prefer math contests where any kid who can reach the library has a downtown tty good opportunity.
- faramarz 15y agoI would like to know if Siemens has any stake on the "outputs" of such competitions. Do they effectively own the patent, if there is one? Please don't tell me she had to sign a waiver.
- polyfractal 15y agoI'm unsure about the Siemens competition, but its definitely a "no" for the ISEF. I imagine Siemens is the same. Besides, this work was done at a university, so they would own the IP before anyone else.
- alberich 15y agoI don't get it. The girl supposedly created the "swiss army knife of cancer treatment" and she gets only U$ 100k? This doesn't sound right... this is no "swiss army knife" or the girl was cheated. If the project is such a great advancement she would be able to rise lots of money from some medical research company... like some millions of dolars.
- lightcatcher 15y agoIts odd, but I feel like I've seen this project (some sort of cancer killing thing) win at each of the significant science fairs over the last couple of years. From my experience, most of the kids at these high level science fairs just make reports over stuff they've worked on (not designed) in a lab. My sister is currently working on a pretty good science fair project involving paint that can generate solar power. The cycle for this was to come up with an idea, email universities/labs in the area, find a mentor who agrees to work with them, and then just listen to and do what the mentor advises. Its still a great project and she is learning a ton from it, but not really something she designed and I wouldn't be happy to compete against it with something I came up with and made in my garage. Overall, I wish there was some sort of limit to how much the mentors are able to be involved. I had a ton of fun (and learned a lot) doing $150 max budget, internet research only projects mostly on my own (sometimes had help from my dad building apparatus), but its pretty impossible to compete with people working out of labs with professional help. Also, I just realized that some guy I met a few months ago when school started (and who I have classes with) won the Siemens competition last year.
- omegant 15y agoIt is only me or this page always gives problems with Iphone?.