Indian-American teen wins $250,000 in US science talent search competition

The Indian-American community continues to win laurels in the United States of America.

In the latest instance, an Indian-American teen from Michigan has won a prestigious science talent search award for high school students. 17-year-old Neel Moudgal won a $250,000 award in the 2023 Regeneron Science Talent Search.

He created a computer model that can rapidly and reliably predict the structure of ribonucleic acid, or RNA, molecules using easily accessible data. He believes it will make it easier to diagnose and treat certain diseases.

According to a statement, Neel’s computational model contains a library of possible shapes for a given RNA molecule based on its atomic structure. A statistical method assigns weights to each structure in the library, favouring structures that closely resemble experimental data. By using 2D histograms for reweighting, his model eliminates the need to assign chemical shift data.

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