14-year-old wins 25K USD prize in 3M competition
October 19, 2020 11:11 AM   Subscribe

3M, in partnership with Discovery Education, Oct. 14 announced that Indian American student Anika Chebrolu won the 2020 Young Scientist Challenge competition. Chebrolu, of Frisco, Texas, developed a novel antiviral drug to combat the spread of COVID-19 by researching protein spikes in coronavirus.

In her study, Chebrolu discovered a molecule that can selectively bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2. Binding and inhibiting this viral protein would potentially stop the virus entry into the cell, creating a viable drug target. In her research, Chebrolu screened millions of small molecules for drug-likeness properties, ADMET properties, and binding affinities against the spike protein using numerous software tools. The one molecule with the best pharmacological and biological activity towards the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was chosen as the lead molecule that could be a potential drug for the effective treatment of COVID-19, the release notes.

"While the youngster was initially working to create a treatment for flu, she steered her research post-COVID-19 in the US. ... The eighth-grader said that she would accredit her research to her grandfather for igniting flair for science and wants to relieve the suffering of those severely impacted with the disease. Chebrolu’s grand dad was a chemistry professor and had implanted love for chemistry in the young child by pushing her to understand the periodic table of the elements when she was younger."
posted by Bella Donna (10 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Congratulations to Anika. Great work

but

Please don't use the phrase "developed a Novel Antiviral drug". The reason why I say this is it feeds into "if a 14 year old can do it by themselves, why don't we have a cure". .......no individual could discover, much less develop a drug these days.

What she did was amazing work (esp for a 14 year old) - but it wasn't anywhere near that kind of result. She used a computer to model millions of small molecules and their interactions with a part of the Covid virus, and found some that had properties that mean one of these compounds might be a drug (or the basis for a drug) one day.......after billions of dollars and 5-15 years of of extra research that requires thousands of other people's involvement. For computation alone, there are tens of thousands of scientists taking similar approaches around the world (and modeling trillions of compounds!), and this approach it is a mainstay of pharmaceutical research. The failure rate for virtual screening results to drug discovery is like 99.9999999...% - for good reason...

A primer on virtual (software) screening from In The Pipeline.
posted by lalochezia at 11:29 AM on October 19, 2020 [44 favorites]


No "buts" about it, Ms. Cebrolu gives me hope for our future and a strong curiosity about science.

Also, hats off to her mentor, Dr. Mahfuza Ali, and a grandfather who are helping to cultivate her talent.

Thanks for this post, I needed that today.
posted by SteveInMaine at 11:36 AM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


One of the best science fair projects ever, but could someone give the science headline writers a virtual whack aside the head?
posted by sammyo at 11:41 AM on October 19, 2020 [2 favorites]


All the finalists are here. Well done to Anika Chebrolu!

The other finalists were (in no particular order).
1. A novel robotic glove system designed to fast-track stroke rehabilitation
2. A solution that will allow farmers to easily and effectively detect diseased and unhealthy crops to reduce food waste and loss
3. A highly renewable, nontoxic alternative energy source to replace current energy solutions that use non-renewable, toxic components
4. A microfluidic device that mimics conditions of the gut microbiome to help test the relationship between bacteria and cancer,
5. An alternate, low-cost approach to reducing indoor air pollution using leaf-like structures inside the home
6. Robots to mimic swarm intelligence to be used to accomplish complex tasks and collect data and information in the aid of healthcare, agriculture, construction
7. An affordable telemedicine-based solution that accurately captures and relays breath sounds along with symptomatic data to physicians
8. A portable Total Suspended Solids (TSS) device that easily and clearly detects invisible particles in water to monitor water quality and contamination levels
9. A constructive way to utilize muck found in water as an aggregate in concrete and eliminate the need for Muck-sites

So the kids (and these kids in particular) are not just doing alright, but kicking ass and taking names.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 11:45 AM on October 19, 2020 [10 favorites]


Maybe I'm out to lunch but these look like problems adults value, and not scientific questions that young minds might come up with. It was a technology fair by 3M, masquerading as a science fair. There's a pedagogical difference.
posted by polymodus at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2020 [3 favorites]


FYI, the headline has two extra words because I was trying to add them as keywords and screwed up. Have asked a mod to fix it and with luck, that will happen at some point. Thanks for the list, inflatablekiwi! Finally, I should have linked to a less excitable source. No, she did not develop a Novel Antiviral drug and I can't believe I missed that. Sigh. Anyway, she did some kick-ass work, so did a bunch of other youngsters, sure it is a PR ploy by 3M but I think they are worth celebrating nonetheless. Happy Monday!
posted by Bella Donna at 12:07 PM on October 19, 2020


The topics are probably a result of the entry rules and structured topics they had (essentially six domains to innovate a solution to a problem in - with some suggested problems/questions). But regardless of what they call the competition - I'm just going to go with calling the results pretty awesome (some of the finalists were only 12...and if I remember being 12 accurately I wasn't programing robots with swarm intelligence....trying to hide the cracks in the driveway from a skateboard jump yes...but not with robots and definitely with less intelligence)
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:08 PM on October 19, 2020 [2 favorites]


Late stage capitalism asks "how TF is my kid going to compete with this" and "of course her grandfather spoon fed her the periodic table" with a little "I bet her parents are rich doctors and she goes to private school" followed by a "knock it off you dick she's 14 allow a little props" floating on a river of "Zuckerberg made hot-or-not on top of a tech stack made up of 75 years of research by hundreds of thousands of people using hundreds of millions of public tax monies but suuure he did it himself so he gets the $billions and doesn't need to pay taxes because he's smart and this is the same thing as that" and just ugh at myself and all of the things that I react to with these defensive thoughts. Society passed her the ball and she put it in the net, and that's awesome for a 14 year old, and also let's pass more balls to more 14 year olds. I have an idea where to get the money.
posted by everythings_interrelated at 12:23 PM on October 19, 2020 [14 favorites]


THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT [and the rest is noise]
posted by chavenet at 12:29 PM on October 19, 2020 [4 favorites]


Maybe I'm out to lunch but these look like problems adults value, and not scientific questions that young minds might come up with. It was a technology fair by 3M, masquerading as a science fair. There's a pedagogical difference.

When I was in school I entered lots of different types of competitions (nothing as impressive or prestigious as this). The only common thread between them was that everybody who did well submitted an entry that they thought the judges would like. That's not to say we hated what we submitted -- you can bring yourself to be interested in all sorts of things! -- but there's not a lot of pure "for the love of knowledge" scholastic competitions at ANY level.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:18 AM on October 21, 2020


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