A 14-year-old won 3M’s 2020 Young Scientist Challenge for her discovery that could lead to a therapeutic cure for people who have COVID-19.
Anika Chebrolu, an eight grader from Frisco, Texas, won a $25,000 prize for discovering a lead molecule that can bind to proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
“I isolated a lead compound from a database of almost 698 million molecules,” Chebrolu said.
Anika told 3M that her coronavirus study began as a study for a novel treatment for influenza after she got sick last year. “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,” she wrote. “I would like to learn more from 3M scientists to pursue my drug development and with their help, would like to conduct in-vitro and in-vivo testing of my lead drug candidate.”
Her study involved using in-silico methods — computer models and simulations of how different molecules and virus strains interact — to identify molecules able to bind to the outside of the influenza virus and the coronavirus. Out of hundreds of millions of molecules, Anika identified a single molecule.
“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 teenager told CNN.
When she grows up, Anika wants to be “a medical researcher and professor.”
Recently, a number of countries have experienced spikes in the number of daily coronavirus cases. On Wednesday, Spain became the first Western European nation to surpass 1 million coronavirus cases. According to Johns Hopkins University, France became the second on Thursday as the European Union struggles to contain its largest surge since the spring. Last week, the European Union surpassed the United States in new COVID-19 cases for the first time since April.
Though areas in the U.S., such as New York City, have begun to see caseloads creep back up, the U.S. has yet to see signs of a true second wave. After the Northeast was hammered by the coronavirus in the spring, clusters and outbreaks rippled across the country, affecting Sunbelt and Midwestern states in the summer. Cases are currently are spiking in the Upper Midwest in states such as Wisconsin, where for the first time, more than 1,000 were hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
