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Cancer research
wins top prize in
science contest
By Devin Powell
WASHINGTON — Nithin Tumma captains
his high school’s robotics team and plays
tennis. But it’s his work to understand the
wily ways of cancer that has made him a
champion. For figuring out how a protein
helps cancer evolve and hide from the
body’s immune system, Tumma, 17, won
first place in the 2012 Intel Science Talent
Search. Tumma, of Fort Gratiot, Mich.,
received a $100,000 award from the
Intel Foundation at a black-tie gala held
March 13 in Washington, D.C.
The event honored this year’s 40 finalists, who distinguished themselves from
more than 1,800 entries. The budding
scientists hailed from 16 states and split
$630,000 in awards. The Intel Science
Talent Search has been administered by
Society for Science & the Public, which
publishes Science News, since 1942.
“There are 40 individuals here who
prove we still have the capability in this
country to cultivate the next generation
of innovators, thinkers, scientists and
entrepreneurs,” Intel President and
CEO Paul Otellini told the students at
the gala. “I’m keenly looking forward
to watching you make wonderful things
happen in the coming years.”
Second place went to Andrey Sushko,
17, of Richland, Wash., who got a $75,000
award. He created a tiny motor, only
7 millimeters across, powered by the sur-
face tension of water. A coating of water-
repellent material made this unusual
alternative form of energy possible.
Mimi Yen, 17, of Brooklyn, N.Y., won
third place and $50,000 for identifying a
gene that causes some worms to behave
strangely. Males with a mutant form of
Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini (right) congratulates the top three finalists
of the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search (from left): second-place winner Andrey
Sushko, first-place winner Nithin Tumma and third-place winner Mimi Yen.
this gene attach globs of mucus to each
other’s orifices, a behavior that’s usually
reserved for impregnating the hermaphrodites of the species.
Fourth place and $40,000 went to
David Ding, 18, of Albany, Calif., who
studied a branch of mathematics called
Cherednik algebras. Benjamin Van
Doren, 18, of White Plains, N. Y., won fifth
place and a $30,000 award for showing
that birds migrating in autumn get their
bearings during the morning and tend to
fly into the wind. The sixth place award of
$25,000 went to Neel Patel, 17, of Geneva,
Fla., for a device that uses sounds instead
of pictures to convey information.
Coming in seventh was Anirudh
Prabhu, 17, of West Lafayette, Ind., who
received $25,000 for demonstrating that
odd perfect numbers, which equal the
sum of every number they can be cleanly
divided by, have a lower limit.
Eighth through 10th places, which
each come with a $20,000 award, went
to Clara Fannjiang, 17, of Davis, Calif.,
for her work on creating images of celes-
tial bodies that give off radio waves;
Alissa Zhang, 17, of Saratoga, Calif., who
explored three different ways to monitor
blood glucose levels using light instead
of needles; and Jordan Cotler, 17, of
Northbrook, Ill., who developed a new
way to send encrypted messages using
quantum mechanics and Einstein’s
theory of special relativity.
