California teen Angela Zhang, 17, won the top individual honors at a United States high- school science competition for inventing a nanoparticle which delivers cancer drugs directly to tumour cells - without affecting the cells’ surrounding healthy tissue.
The particle, which she describes as the ” Swiss Army Knife of cancer treatments “, is able to release a drug when activated by a laser. It also allows researchers to monitor the effects of the treatment in real time using current imaging techniques, although it may be decades before it can be used in humans.
The teen, whose research was inspired by her grandfather’s death from lung cancer, was given a US$100,000 scholarship at the annual Siemens Competition In Math, Science & Technology.



