Indian-American Teen Anika Chebrolu Wins $25,000 Prize For Potential Covid Treatment

An Indian-American teenager has been awarded $25,000 for her research to find a treatment for the coronavirus. Anika Chebrolu, a 14-year-old from Texas, has just won the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge for her work on a potential drug to treat COVID-19, reports CNN.

The schoolgirl has developed a molecule that can bind to a certain protein of the coronavirus and prevent it from functioning.

"I developed this molecule that can bind to a certain protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This protein by binding to it it will stop the function of the protein," the eight-grader was quoted as saying by ABC News. 

"It's exciting. I'm still trying to process everything," she said of her big win. 

Anika wasn't always focused on the coronavirus. When the year began, she was working on ways to fight the seasonal flu. Her plans changed when the pandemic hit. In order to find a potential drug for the highly infectious virus, the 14-year-old used multiple computer programs to identify how and where the molecule would bind to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. 

Anika used in-silico methodology for drug discovery to find a molecule that can selectively bind to the Spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in an attempt to find a cure for the COVID-19 pandemic.