17-Year-Old Girl Wins $100,000 Award for Cancer Research

By: Bay City News Service

Angela Zhang, a Cupertino high school student, was announced the winner of a $100,000 college scholarship for her research on utilizing nanotechnology to potentially eradicate cancer stem cells and leave healthy cells intact.

Zhang is the 2011 Grand Prize recipient of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, an annual research competition for American high school students.

Zhang is a 17-year-old senior at Cupertino's Monta Vista High School and spent an estimated 1,000 hours conducting research after school and on weekends.

Dr. Zhen Cheng, an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Stanford University acted as Zhang's mentor for her research project, according to the Siemens Foundation.

Zhang worked to design a gold and iron oxide-based nanoparticle to target cancer stem cells. 

"Angela created a nanoparticle that is like a Swiss army knife of cancer treatment," said competition judge Dr. Tejal Desai, a Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at the University of California at San Francisco.

Her research designed a cancer treatment technique that combines therapy and non-invasive imaging into a single platform.

Since 1998, the annual competition has been administered by the College Board and funded by the Siemens Foundation, an organization run by the electronic company Siemens AG.