14-Year-Old Girl Wins $25 Prize in Science Competition
“It reflects our collective hopes to end this pandemic as I, like everyone else, wish that we go back to our normal lives soon,” Anika Chebrolu said of her project.
Written content by Joelle Goldstein via Health
A young scientist is leading the way towards a potential cure for COVID-19 — and she’s only 14 years old!
Anika Chebrolu recently won 3M’s Young Scientist Challenge after discovering a drug that could provide a treatment for the coronavirus, according to the competition’s website.
Using an in-silico methodology — an approach made through the use of a computer, according to Drug Discovery and Evaluation: Safety and Pharmacokinetic Assays — Chebrolu was able to find a molecule that can “selectively bind to the Spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” 3M said.
With her discovery, Chebrolu not only found a potential cure for COVID-19 but also won $25,000 in prize money.
“I saw that there is a lot of media hype about my project since it involves the SARS-CoV-2 virus and it reflects our collective hopes to end this pandemic as I, like everyone else, wish that we go back to our normal lives soon,” Chebrolu told CNN.
The eighth-grader, of Frisco, Texas, explained to the outlet that she initially entered the competition with a project focused on finding a cure for the influenza virus using the same in-silico method.
Her fascination with finding virus cures developed after she was infected with the flu in 2019, 3M said.
“I have always been amazed by science experiments since my childhood and I was drawn towards finding effective cures for Influenza disease after a severe bout of the infection last year,” Chebrolu explained in her website profile. Read more from Health.
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