Houston: American Teenager of Indian Origin has won a prize of US $ 25,000 for a unique discovery. This finding may provide a possible treatment of Covid-19. Anika Chebrolu (14) received this amount to make it to the top 10 in the ‘3M Young Scientist Challenge’. It is a major US secondary school science competition. ‘3M’ is an American manufacturing company based in Minnesota.
According to the ‘3M Challenge website’, after suffering a severe ‘influenza’ infection last year, Chebrolu decided to participate in the Young Scientist Challenge. She wanted to find a cure for ‘influenza’.
All changed after Covid-19 and focused on the SARS-COV-2 infection. He has also received special mentorship of ‘3M’ along with the prize money. “I am happy to be included in the list of America’s top young scientists,” said Chebrolu.
CNN reported that Anika had submitted her project when she was in 8th grade – but it wasn’t initially focused on finding a cure for Covid-19.
The goal of her project was to use in-silico methods to identify a lead compound that could bind to a protein of the influenza virus.
Anika said, “After spending so much time researching about pandemics, viruses and drug discovery, it was crazy to think that I was actually living through something like this.”
“Because of the immense severity of the Covid-19 pandemic and the drastic impact it had made on the world in such a short time, I, with the help of my mentor, changed directions to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”
The 14-year-old hopes to be a medical researcher and professor in 15 years. She told that her favorite invention of the last 100 years is the Internet because it allows users “to explore so much with just a few clicks”.
