HOW far would you expect a 15-year-old student to go in cancer research?
American student Nathan Han, 15, is on his way to making important new developments possible. He has created software for studying mutations (变异) of a gene linked to breast cancer.
It is able to tell the difference between mutations that cause the disease and those that do not with an 81 percent accuracy (准确) rate.
His invention won the top prize at the 2014 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) held in Los Angeles, US from May 11 to 16. According to sponsor (赞助商) Intel, the contest is the world’s largest high school science research competition. Each year, around 7 million high school students across the world develop and send their research report for the Intel ISEF competition. Over 1,700 students from more than 70 countries and regions were selected to join this year’s “week-long celebration of science, technology, engineering (工程学), and math”.
Han, a high school freshman in Boston, has long been interested in biology, statistics (统计学) and computer science, according to Boston Business Journal. He found a chance to combine all three in developing his software, which uses data from public databases (数据库).
He said the decision was partly because there’s so much information available on that one gene. Also, a few years ago, he visited a friend of his mother’s who had ovarian (卵巢的) cancer because of a mutation of the gene, which is thought to be involved in breast as well as several other types of cancer.
Han walked away with the $75,000 (467,000 yuan) prize and the title as top winner. He said this was certainly not something he was expecting. In fact, he got quite discouraged along the way, as he had difficulties finding a laboratory research instructor because of his young age.
“I actually got rejected (拒绝) from a bunch of internships (实习) … You have to be 16 for a lot of opportunities like that,” Han told The Huffington Post in the US. “But I think the main message is, don’t be afraid to follow your dreams even if obstacles (障碍) happen.”
American student Nathan Han, 15, is on his way to making important new developments possible. He has created software for studying mutations (变异) of a gene linked to breast cancer.
It is able to tell the difference between mutations that cause the disease and those that do not with an 81 percent accuracy (准确) rate.
His invention won the top prize at the 2014 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) held in Los Angeles, US from May 11 to 16. According to sponsor (赞助商) Intel, the contest is the world’s largest high school science research competition. Each year, around 7 million high school students across the world develop and send their research report for the Intel ISEF competition. Over 1,700 students from more than 70 countries and regions were selected to join this year’s “week-long celebration of science, technology, engineering (工程学), and math”.
Han, a high school freshman in Boston, has long been interested in biology, statistics (统计学) and computer science, according to Boston Business Journal. He found a chance to combine all three in developing his software, which uses data from public databases (数据库).
He said the decision was partly because there’s so much information available on that one gene. Also, a few years ago, he visited a friend of his mother’s who had ovarian (卵巢的) cancer because of a mutation of the gene, which is thought to be involved in breast as well as several other types of cancer.
Han walked away with the $75,000 (467,000 yuan) prize and the title as top winner. He said this was certainly not something he was expecting. In fact, he got quite discouraged along the way, as he had difficulties finding a laboratory research instructor because of his young age.
“I actually got rejected (拒绝) from a bunch of internships (实习) … You have to be 16 for a lot of opportunities like that,” Han told The Huffington Post in the US. “But I think the main message is, don’t be afraid to follow your dreams even if obstacles (障碍) happen.”
