Indrani Das worked on treating neurodegenerative disease and
brain injury
Indian-American
teenager Indrani Das won the top prize of $2,50,000 (Rs. 1.63 crore) in the
Regeneron Science Talent Search competition in the U.S. for her research on
treating brain injury and disease.
Ms. Das is a
17-year-old student living in New Jersey. Her work looked at boosting the
survival rate of neurons. A contributor to neuron death is astrogliosis, a
condition that occurs when cells called astrocytes react to injury by growing,
dividing and reducing their uptake of glutamate, which in excess is toxic to
neurons.
In a
laboratory model, she showed that exosomes isolated from astrocytes transfected
with microRNA-124a both improved astrocyte uptake of glutamate and increased
neuron survival.
Another
Indian-American teen, Arjun Ramani, took the third place, which carries a prize
of $1,50,000, for his project on networks using mathematical field of graph
theory and computer programming.
The second
prize of $1,75,000 was bagged by Aaron Yeiser for his development of a
mathematical method for solving partial differential equations on complicated
geometries.
The talent
search, nicknamed the ‘Junior Nobel Prize’, is the oldest U.S. science
competition for students. It is organised by the Society for Science and the
Public in association with medical firm Regeneron.
Indian-Americans
shine
Of the 40
finalists of the science talent search, 13 were Indian-Americans.
Archana Verma
took the fifth place award of $90,000 for research that could lead to the
development of windows that could produce solar power.
Prathik Naidu
ranked seventh place ($70,000) for a software to study human genomes and
cancer, and Vrinda Madan got the ninth place award of $50,000 for her study of
medications for malaria.
Society for
Science the Public President Maya Ajmera said the finalists “are all poised to
become our future scientific leaders”. More that 1,700 students took part in
the contest.
Source: THE HINDU-17th March,2017
