$75,000 Top
Award Goes to 17-year-old Kaitlyn
Wang for breakthrough innovation to accelerate exoplanet
discovery in the largest international STEM competition for
teens
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. and WASHINGTON,
May 19,
2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Regeneron Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. and Society for Science (the Society) announced that
Kaitlyn Wang, 17, of San José, CA,
won the $75,000 top award in
the 2023 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair
(Regeneron ISEF), the world's largest global pre-college science
and engineering competition, for a project that explored planets
that orbit very close around their suns. Other top prizes went to
projects in the fields of computational biology, animal sciences
and neurobiology.
![Congratulations to the top winners in the 2023 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science. (Photo by Chris Ayers Photography/Society for Science) Congratulations to the top winners in the 2023 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science. (Photo by Chris Ayers Photography/Society for Science)](https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2081575/Society_for_Science_ISEF_2023_Winners.jpg)
The top winners were honored during two award ceremonies, the
first of which took place on the evening of May 18 and featured Special Award winners. The
Grand Awards Ceremony was held on the morning of May 19 and included the announcement of the top
prize of $75,000. In total, nearly
U.S. $9 million was awarded to the
finalists, who were evaluated based on their projects' creativity,
innovation and depth of scientific inquiry. The competition
featured over 1,600 young scientists representing 49 states and 64
countries across the world.
Kaitlyn Wang won
first place and received the $75,000 George D. Yancopoulos Innovator
Award, named in honor of the pioneering drug researcher and
Regeneron co-founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer, for
finding an efficient way to identify certain exoplanets that orbit
very closely around their stars. Previous techniques used to detect
these ultra-short-period planets required enormous computational
power but were not as effective at identifying these planets.
Kaitlyn surmounted that problem by creating a special algorithm
that runs on cheap hardware and results in much faster and
higher-precision findings. Using her research, she says she found
the smallest of these planets ever discovered.
Saathvik Kannan, 17, of Columbia, Missouri, received one of two
Regeneron Young Scientist Awards of $50,000 for using biocomputational methods to
understand the causes of heightened infectivity in the disease mpox
after it reemerged in 2022. Saathvik's approach, named Bioplex,
uses a combination of machine learning and three-dimensional
comparative protein modeling to decode structures like those that
enable the mpox virus to replicate. This allowed him to identify
the mutations in the virus that likely made it more infectious as
well as other mutations that could make it resistant to
antibiotics. Saathvik believes scientists will also be able to
apply Bioplex to future outbreaks of other viruses.
Teepakorn Keawumdee, 17; Pannathorn Siri,
16; and, Poon Trakultangmun, 18, of
Bangkok,
Thailand, received the second Regeneron Young
Scientist Award of $50,000 for
developing an innovative incubation chamber that promotes the
survival of the green lacewing insect, a natural predator of the
mealybug, a harmful pest. In nature, the green lacewing has a low
survival rate, but the team's new system increased the lacewing's
survival rate five-fold. In field tests, their incubation system
was an effective alternative to insecticides and lowered the
mealybug population density nearly four-fold.
"Congratulations to the Regeneron International Science and
Engineering Fair 2023 winners," said Maya
Ajmera, President and CEO, Society for Science and Executive
Publisher, Science News. "I am humbled by the creativity and
determination demonstrated by these exceptional students and proud
of all they have accomplished with their outstanding research
abilities. Together, these students from various academic
disciplines and geographies are solving the world's most
intractable problems."
Regeneron ISEF provides a global stage for the best and
brightest young scientists and engineers around the world. Through
this competition Regeneron and the Society support and invest in
the next generation of leading STEM innovators who are generating
ideas and acting as catalysts for the change needed to improve the
well-being of all people, society and the planet.
"We are thrilled to celebrate this year's Regeneron ISEF
finalists as they join our growing community of bold individuals
tackling the world's most pressing challenges," said George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder,
President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron. "I applaud
today's finalists and all the ISEF participants for their
relentless pursuit of groundbreaking ideas that ignite positive and
sustainable change in our world. I owe so much of my passion for
science to the experiences and mentors I had in high school, and I
hope that today is just the beginning of a lifelong commitment to
STEM for many of these students."
Other top honors from the competition include:
Natasha Kulviwat, 16, of Jericho, New York, received the
Gordon E. Moore Award of
$50,000 for Positive Outcomes
for Future Generations for her search for biomarkers to help
prevent suicides. By analyzing de-identified brain tissue from 20
people, Natasha measured levels of two proteins, cytokine and
claudin-5, and found that neuroinflammation and claudin-5 were
increased in the brains of suicide cases. Her work suggests that
high levels of the protein claudin-5 could serve as pre-markers for
suicide and that certain anti-inflammatory drugs might decrease
claudin-5 levels.
Yuyang Wang, 16, of
Shanghai,
China, received the Craig
R. Barrett Award for Innovation of $10,000 for his development of an
inchworm-style stick-climbing robot. This type of robot
conventionally has grabbers that allow it to climb over and under
obstructions like a caterpillar does, but he added skateboard-like
wheels, which allow it to perform better than existing
inchworm-style robots when the angle is less than 22°. The hybrid
wheel/grabber assembly is novel, and he believes his robot will
work well for tasks that are potentially dangerous to humans, such
as inspecting damaged high-voltage lines.
Rishabh Ranjan, 17, and
Gopalaniruddh Tadinada, 17, of Louisville, Kentucky, received the H.
Robert Horvitz Prize for Fundamental Research of $10,000 for building a custom, automated
system to detect gastrointestinal cancer before serious symptoms
appear. The team's system combines robotics and machine learning to
analyze blood samples to identify healthy patients, as well as
those with pancreatic, colorectal or hepatic cancers, in only three
hours at an estimated cost of only $300. Detecting these cancers before they
metastasize could make treatment much simpler and more
effective.
Eugene Chen, 16, of
Shanghai, China, received
the Peggy Scripps Award for Science
Communication of $10,000 for
his inexpensive energy-saving device that recycles the condensation
produced by air conditioners to improve their energy efficiency.
His device directs the cooling fan's airflow to spray the air
conditioner's condensation at its own condenser, lowering its
temperature and thus reducing power consumption and improving its
energy efficiency. Eugene believes his easy-to-install device can
reduce the amount of electricity used by air conditioners by more
than 10%.
More information about the top winners and visual assets can be
found
at https://www.societyforscience.org/regeneron-isef-2023-media-kit/
Daniel Levin, 18, of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;
Alexander Plekhanov, 17, of
Portland, Oregon; and
Kevin Zhu, 18, of
Old Westbury, New York received
the Dudley R. Herschbach SIYSS Award, which provides
the finalists with an all-expenses-paid trip to attend the
Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar, which includes
attendance at the Nobel Prize Ceremonies in Stockholm, Sweden.
George Cheng, 17, of
Cary, North Carolina, and
Yik Chun John Peng, 17, of
Shanghai, China received
the EU Contest for Young Scientists Award, which is
presented to two projects that will represent Regeneron ISEF at the
EU Contest for Young Scientists to be held in Brussels, Belgium, September 13-17, 2023.
Full list of all award-winning ISEF 2023 Finalists
Full list of Special Award ISEF 2023 Finalists
In addition to the Top Award winners, 450 finalists received
awards and prizes for their innovative research, including "First
Award" winners, who each received a $5,000 prize. The following lists the First Award
winners for each of the 21 categories, from which the Top Awards
were chosen:
Category and
Sponsor
|
Winner
|
Location
|
Animal Sciences,
sponsored by Society for Science
|
Teepakorn
Keawumdee
|
Bangkok,
Thailand
|
Pannathorn
Siri
|
Poon
Trakultangmun
|
Behavioral and Social
Sciences, sponsored by Society for Science
|
Emma Colarte
Delgado
|
Southwest Ranches,
FL
|
Biochemistry, sponsored
by Regeneron
|
Harrison Hao-Tian
Tang
|
Shanghai,
China
|
Biomedical and Health
Sciences, sponsored by Regeneron
|
Natasha
Kulviwat
|
Jericho, NY
|
George Cheng
|
Cary, NC
|
Biomedical Engineering,
sponsored by Society for Science
|
Rishabh
Ranjan
|
Louisville,
KY
|
Gopalaniruddh
Tadinada
|
Muhammad
El-Sherbiny
|
Fort Lee, NJ
|
Cellular and Molecular
Biology, sponsored by Regeneron
|
Sarah
Jennings
|
Ossining, NY
|
Chemistry, sponsored by
Beal Bank
|
Ekin Asyali
|
Gaziantep,
Turkey
|
Sude Gulsen
|
Faisal
Almuhaysh
|
Hofuf, Saudi
Arabia
|
Computational Biology
and Bioinformatics, sponsored by Regeneron
|
Saathvik
Kannan
|
Columbia, MO
|
Kevin Zhu
|
Old Westbury,
NY
|
Earth and Environmental
Sciences, sponsored by National Geographic Society
|
Franziska
Borneff
|
Roanoke, VA
|
Paige Hinkle
|
Sinking Spring,
PA
|
Embedded Systems,
sponsored by Microsoft
|
Yik Chun John
Peng
|
Shanghai,
China
|
Energy: Sustainable
Materials and Design, sponsored by Siemens Energy
|
Eugene Chen
|
Shanghai,
China
|
Engineering Technology:
Statics and Dynamics, sponsored by Howmet Aerospace
Foundation
|
Yuyang
Wang
|
Shanghai,
China
|
Ethan
Zentner
|
Glendale, WI
|
Environmental
Engineering, sponsored by Jacobs
|
Mohammed
Alarfaj
|
Al Khobar, Saudi
Arabia
|
Aryan Mago
|
Shrewsbury,
MA
|
Materials Science,
sponsored by Howmet Aerospace Foundation
|
Calvin
Mathew
|
Davie, FL
|
Mathematics, sponsored
by Akamai Foundation
|
Meryl Zhang
|
Plano, TX
|
Microbiology, sponsored
by Robert I. Schattner Foundation
|
Shriya Bhat
|
Richardson,
TX
|
Daniel Levin
|
Pittsburgh,
PA
|
Physics and Astronomy,
sponsored by Richard F. Caris Charitable Trust II
|
Alexander
Plekhanov
|
Portland, OR
|
Kaitlyn Wang
|
San José, CA
|
Plant Sciences,
sponsored by Society for Science
|
Dongtian Liu
|
Shanghai,
China
|
Robotics and
Intelligent Machines, sponsored by Regeneron
|
Timucin
Erbas
|
Acton, MA
|
Kai Turner
|
Sydney,
Australia
|
Systems Software,
sponsored by Microsoft
|
Harshil
Avlani
|
Chandler, AZ
|
Translational Medical
Science, sponsored by Regeneron
|
Aditi
Avinash
|
Castle Pines,
CO
|
Alanna
Polyak
|
Plano, TX
|
View all the finalists' research here.
About the Regeneron International Science and Engineering
Fair
The Regeneron International Science and Engineering
Fair (Regeneron ISEF), a program of Society for Science for over 70
years, is the world's largest global science competition for high
school. Through a global network of local, regional and national
science fairs, millions of students are encouraged to explore their
passion for scientific inquiry. Each spring, a group of these
students is selected as finalists and offered the opportunity to
compete for approximately U.S. $9
million in awards and scholarships.
In 2019, Regeneron became the title sponsor of ISEF to help
reward and celebrate the best and brightest young minds globally
and encourage them to pursue careers in STEM as a way to positively
impact the world. Regeneron ISEF is supported by a community of
additional sponsors, including Akamai Foundation; Beal Bank; Gordon
and Betty Moore Foundation; Howmet Aerospace Foundation; Jacobs;
King Abdulaziz & his Companions
Foundation for Giftedness & Creativity; Lyda Hill
Philanthropies; Microsoft; National Geographic Society; Richard F.
Caris Charitable Trust II; Rise, an initiative of Schmidt Futures
and the Rhodes Trust; Robert I. Schattner Foundation; Siemens
Energy; Texas A&M Engineering; Perot Museum; Cesco Linguistic
Services; Insaco; Oracle Academy; Southern
Methodist University; The University of
Texas at Dallas; Army ROTC; ExxonMobil; and The Hoglund
Foundation. ISEF alumni have gone on to have world-changing careers
in science and engineering and earn some of the most esteemed
honors, including the National Medal of Science, MacArthur
Foundation Fellows, National Academy of Sciences and National
Academy of Engineering Inductees. Many are entrepreneurs across a
wide range of industries. Learn more
at https://www.societyforscience.org/isef/.
About Society for Science
Society for Science is a
champion for science, dedicated to promoting the understanding and
appreciation of science and the vital role it plays in human
advancement. Established in 1921, Society for Science is best known
for its award-winning journalism through Science
News and Science News Explores, its world-class science
research competitions for students, including the Regeneron Science
Talent Search, the Regeneron International Science and Engineering
Fair and the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge,
and its outreach and equity programming that seeks to ensure that
all students have an opportunity to pursue a career in STEM. A
501(c)(3) membership organization, Society for Science is committed
to inform, educate and inspire. Learn more
at www.societyforscience.org and follow us
on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat
(Society4Science).
About Regeneron
Regeneron (NASDAQ: REGN) is a leading
biotechnology company that invents life-transforming medicines for
people with serious diseases. Founded and led for 35 years by
physician-scientists, our unique ability to repeatedly and
consistently translate science into medicine has led to nine
FDA-approved treatments and numerous product candidates in
development, almost all of which were homegrown in our
laboratories. Regeneron's medicines and pipeline are designed to
help patients with eye diseases, allergic and inflammatory
diseases, cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, pain,
hematologic conditions, infectious diseases and rare diseases.
Regeneron believes that operating as a good corporate citizen is
crucial to delivering on our mission. We approach corporate
responsibility with three goals in mind: to improve the lives of
people with serious diseases, to foster a culture of
integrity and excellence and to build sustainable
communities. Regeneron is proud to be included on the Dow Jones
Sustainability World Index and the Civic 50 list of the most
"community-minded" companies in the
United States. Throughout the year, Regeneron empowers and
supports employees to give back through our volunteering, pro-bono
and matching gift programs. Our most significant philanthropic
commitments are in the area of science education, including
the Regeneron Science Talent Search and Regeneron
International Science and Engineering Fair.
For additional information about the company, please visit
www.regeneron.com or follow @Regeneron on Twitter.
Media Contacts
Joseph
Brown,
Regeneron
386-283-1323, joseph.brown2@regeneron.com
Gayle Kansagor, Society for
Science
703-489-1131,
gkansagor@societyforscience.org
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