TARRYTOWN, N.Y. and
WASHINGTON, March 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Regeneron
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) and Society for Science
& the Public today announced that Benjamin "Benjy"
Firester, 18, of New York
City, won the top award in the Regeneron Science Talent
Search 2018, the nation's oldest and most prestigious science and
math competition for high school seniors. Forty finalists,
including Benjy, were honored tonight at the annual Regeneron
Science Talent Search awards gala, which was keynoted by renowned
author Malcolm Gladwell. Regeneron
provided awards of more than $1.8
million for the finalists, who were evaluated for their
research projects, as well as their exceptional scientific and
mathematical knowledge and abilities.
Benjy Firester won first
place and $250,000 for his
development of a mathematical model that uses disease data to
predict how weather patterns could spread spores of the late blight
fungus, which caused the Irish Potato Famine and still causes
billions of dollars in crop damages annually. Benjy's program uses
existing blight locations, date, time and detailed local weather
data to model the likely routes by which late blight will spread
and predict likely future infection sites. Farmers might someday
use shared data to assess blight risk and reduce the preemptive use
of fungicide.
Second place and $175,000
went to Natalia Orlovsky, 18,
of Chadds Ford,
Pennsylvania, for her examination of the response of
lung epithelial cells to fluids used in vaping, a practice promoted
as a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes. While exposure to
e-cigarette vapors did not change a lung cell's DNA, as does
cigarette smoke, Natalia found that fluids of varying flavors and
nicotine content did produce a potent stress response associated
with decreased cell viability. Her results may demonstrate a need
for greater scrutiny of the composition of vaping fluids.
Third place and $150,000
went to Isani Singh, 18, of Aurora, Colorado, for her work towards
determining that women with Turner Syndrome (TS), a genetic
abnormality in which the second sex chromosome is missing, do have
some cells with two X chromosomes. Knowing that most embryos
lacking the second X do not survive, Isani adapted a laboratory
protocol to search for and find these normal cells in TS embryos.
She also identified genes that are under expressed in TS, a finding
that may help physicians and patients better prepare for the
variable medical complications of TS.
"Congratulations to this year's Regeneron Science Talent Search
top winners," said Maya Ajmera,
President and CEO of Society for Science & the Public and
Publisher of Science News. "I am in awe of the finalists'
passion, creativity and commitment to scientific ingenuity. The
incredible history of accomplishments by past winners suggests this
year's winners will become tomorrow's scientific leaders."
In 2017, Regeneron became only the third sponsor of the Science
Talent Search following Westinghouse from 1942-1997 and Intel from
1998-2016, increasing the overall awards distribution to better
reward the best and brightest young minds.
"The Regeneron Science Talent Search competitors are some of our
country's very best young scientists," said George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., Founding
Scientist, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron, and
a Science Talent Search winner himself in 1976. "We're so excited
to support the winners for their remarkable accomplishments, and
are thrilled to see once again the amazing thinking that comes from
a group of passionate, skilled young people bringing fresh
perspectives to significant global problems. Being a winner in what
was then the Westinghouse Science Talent Search changed my life,
and inspired me to devote my life to science. We hope the same for
this year's competitors, and that people of all ages will look to
them as role models and be similarly inspired to change the world
through science."
Other top honors from the competition include:
Fourth Place: Muhammad (Shahir)
Rahman of Portland, Oregon,
received a $100,000 award for
engineering an internet-enabled microwave oven capable of
simultaneously heating different foods on the same plate to optimal
temperatures without requiring user input.
Fifth Place: David Wu of
Potomac, Maryland, received a $90,000 award for his project studying the
patterns of sequential prime numbers.
Sixth Place: Kyle Fridberg
of Boulder, Colorado, received an
$80,000 award for his discovery of a
new compound that may be useful in improving rechargeable battery
technology.
Seventh Place: Vinjai Vale of Exeter, New Hampshire, received a $70,000 award for creating a system that may
improve the ability of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to
understand complex scenes.
Eighth Place: Skyler Jones
of Ossining, New
York, received a $60,000 award
for her study of the crystal perovskite and identification of key
properties of its atomic structure that make it a highly efficient
semiconductor, despite its structural defects and low
stability.
Ninth Place: Syamantak Payra of Friendswood, Texas, received a $50,000 award for his creation of a smart bionic
leg brace that bends the knee automatically as the wearer
walks.
Tenth Place: Raley
Schweinfurth of Portland,
Oregon, received a $40,000
award for her study of contamination levels following a 2013
incident of insecticide spraying in Oregon that killed more than 50,000 bees.
The remaining 30 finalists each received $25,000. These students join the
ranks of other Science Talent Search alumni who have gone on to
receive more than 100 of the world's most esteemed science and math
honors, including the Nobel Prize and the National Medal of
Science, to start successful biotechnology and technology
companies, and to change the world through their myriad
inventions.
About the Regeneron Science Talent Search
The
Regeneron Science Talent Search, founded and produced by Society
for Science & the Public since 1942, is the nation's oldest and
most prestigious science and math competition for high school
seniors. Each year, approximately 1,800 student entrants submit
original research in critically important scientific fields of
study and are judged by leading experts in their fields. Unique
among high school competitions in the U.S. and globally, the
Regeneron Science Talent Search focuses on identifying, inspiring
and engaging the nation's most promising young scientists who are
creating the ideas that could solve society's most urgent
challenges.
Through its 10-year, $100 million
commitment, Regeneron nearly doubled the overall award distribution
to $3.1 million annually, increasing
the top award to $250,000 and
doubling the awards for the top 300 scholars and their schools to
$2,000 each to inspire more young
people to engage in science.
Program alumni include recipients of the world's most coveted
science and math honors, including 11 National Medals of Science,
five Breakthrough Prizes, 18 MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, two
Fields Medals and 13 Nobel Prizes, as well as numerous notable
entrepreneurs and inventors, including the co-founders of
Regeneron.
Learn more at
https://student.societyforscience.org/regeneron-sts and
https://medium.com/regeneron-science-talent-search.
About Society for Science & the
Public
Established in 1921, the Society is a
nonprofit whose vision is to promote the understanding and
appreciation of science and the vital role it plays in human
advancement: to inform, educate and inspire. Through its
world-class competitions, including the Regeneron Science Talent
Search, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and
the Broadcom MASTERS, and its award-winning magazines, Science
News and Science News for Students, the Society conveys
the excitement of science and research directly to the public.
Learn more at www.societyforscience.org and follow us on Medium,
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat (Society4Science).
About Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Regeneron
(NASDAQ: REGN) is a leading biotechnology company that invents
life-transforming medicines for people with serious diseases.
Founded and led for 30 years by physician-scientists, Regeneron's
science-driven approach has resulted in six FDA-approved medicines
and numerous product candidates, all of which are homegrown in
their laboratories. Regeneron's medicines and pipeline are designed
to help in a range of diseases, including eye disease, allergic and
inflammatory diseases, cancer, pain, infectious diseases and rare
diseases. We believe that scientists should be the world's heroes
and are committed to fostering the next generation of scientific
talent through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)
education efforts. For additional information about the company,
please visit www.regeneron.com or follow Regeneron on Twitter and
Facebook.
Media Contact at Society for Science & the
Public
Gayle Kansagor
Phone: 703-489-1131
Email: gkansagor@societyforscience.org
Media Contact at Regeneron
Alex Bowie
Phone: 202-213-1643
Email: Alexandra.Bowie@regeneron.com
Media Contact at North of Nine
Communications
Julia
Kelson
Phone: 415-373-7296
Email: Julia.Kelson@nof9.com
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SOURCE Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.