A 16-year-old Kerala-born student in Canada has amazed
experts with cutting-edge research into an experimental therapy that deploys
nanoparticles of gold to kill cancer cells. Killing cancer cells using
nanoparticles of gold is a fledgling technique in medical science now.
Arjun Nair, a native of Neeleswaram in Kasargod district who
is a high school student of Webber Academy of Canada, won the top honour on
Teusday (April 9,2013) in the 2013 Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada.
The challenge gives high school and general and vocational
college students across Canada the chance to pour their creativity, curiosity,
and scientific skills into cutting-edge research projects that tackle some of
the day’s toughest challenges- from cancer and Alzheimer’s to crops and
environment.
Arjun was awarded the top prize of $5,000 by a panel of
eminent Canadian scientists at the Ottawa headquarters of the National Research
Council of Canada. The prize was presented to him by Canada CEO of Sanofi Jon
Fairest.
His research, which a panel of expert judges called “world
class master’s or PhD-level quality”, also won a special $1,000 prize that is
awarded to the project with the greatest commercial potential.
“I would like to help science develop a nano-bullet to
defeat cancer.”- says Arjun. He showed how an antibiotic could overcome the defenses
cancer deployed against therapy and make the treatment more effective.
These bullets were formed by gold nanoparticles that, when
injected into a patient, accumulated in cancerous tumours. Using light, the
gold nanoparticles rapidly heated up in the tumours, killing only the cancer
cells. Arjun said he had spent two years working on his idea, including the
past year between Simon Trudel’s and David Cramb’s nanoscience labs at the University of
Calgary. It was rare for a high-tech lab to allow a high school student to work
with its expensive equipment, but Dr. Cramb, Dr. Trudel, and lab manager Amy
Tekrony provided access and all-important mentorship, he said.
“I have been doing science fairs since grade 4, and in grade
9, I had the opportunity to attend the Canada Wide Science Fair. There I saw
many young kids such as myself who were doing scientific research in
universities and that inspired me. I then looked at cancer because I had known
people who suffered adversely in response to chemotherapy, and I wanted to
explore a treatment method that could prevent those side-effects. That had I
researching photo thermal therapy and had me tackle one of the challenges that
the treatment method faced”- Arjun explained.
Arjun’s father is a supervisor in the IT Department at
Calgary and his mother an environmental advisor for Suncor Energy in the same
city.
Arjun will now compete for Canada on April 22-23 at the
International BioGENEius Challenge, conducted at the annual BIO conference in
Chicago, U.S.
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