The award-winning science project of a 14-year-old American student may offer insights into a possible treatment for Covid-19.
Anika Chebrolu, an 8th-grade student who aspires to pursue a career as a medical researcher from Frisco, Texas, used computational modeling to locate a molecule that can bind to the coronavirus causing Covid-19 and inhibit its ability to infect people, according to reports.
Anika spent the third quarter working on the project every day.
“Since all my work is computational and only requires the use of various software, I did my entire project at home,” she told the Dallas Morning News.
Anika is participating in a global effort to develop a cure for Covid-19, which has already infected more than 54 million people worldwide and killed over 1.4 million since November 2020, according to the WHO.
The U.S. is supporting the development of numerous potential 
vaccines to combat Covid-19, including several that are in the final stages of testing. On October 22, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an antiviral treatment for hospitalized patients with the disease.
Anika initially planned to seek a cure for the flu virus. But after Covid-19 began to spread worldwide, the young scientist and her mentor changed tactics and started researching a molecule that could bind to the spike protein of the Sars-CoV2 virus and inhibit its ability to infect human cells.
“After spending so much time researching pandemics, viruses, and drug discovery, it was crazy to think that I was actually going through something like this,” she told CNN.
In October, Anika won the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge for her project. The award includes a prize of $25,000.
Source: https://share.america.gov