Indrani Das wins top prize in Regeneron Science Talent Search competition

March 17, 2017

Indian-American teenager Indrani Das (17) has won the top prize of $2,50,000 in the Regeneron Science Talent Search competition in the United States (US).
She has won the award for her research on treating brain injury and disease. Her research showed a way for increasing the survival rate of neurons affected by brain injury or neurodegenerative disease.

Key Facts

One of contributors to neuron death is It is a condition that occurs when cells called astrocytes react to injury by growing, dividing and reducing uptake of glutamate, which in excess is toxic to neurons.
Das’s in a laboratory model showed that exosomes isolated from astrocytes transfected with microRNA-124a improved astrocyte uptake of glutamate and also increased neuron survival.

Indian-American teen, Arjun Ramani was placed at third place for his project on networks using mathematical field of graph theory and computer programming. He won prize of $1,50,000.

Other Indian Winners

Of the 40 finalists of the science talent search, 13 were Indian-Americans. More that 1,700 students took part in the contest.
5th place award ($90,000): Won by Archana Verma for research related development of windows that could produce solar power.
7th place award ($70,000): Won by Prathik Naidu for a developing software to study human genomes and cancer.
9th place award ($50,000): Won by Vrinda Madan for her study of medications for malaria.

About Regeneron Science Talent Search competition

It is the oldest science competition in US for students.
It is nicknamed as the “Junior Nobel Prize”. Twelve of the contest alumni have won Nobel Prizes.
It was originally sponsored by Westinghouse in 1942 and Intel took it up from 1998 till 2016.
Now it is organised by the Society for Science and the Public in association with medical firm Regeneron.

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