Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award

Three high school students--two from the U.S. and one from Germany--received the highest award of the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair, which was held on May 13. Each of the Young Scientist Award winners received a $50,000 scholarship.

Of the three top prize winners, Stephen Schulz, 19, a senior from Gesamtschule Buer-Mitte in Gelsenkirchen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, had a chemistry project. Schulz developed new electrochemical methods to analyze flavonoids, compounds that can protect against cancer and other diseases. For his project, titled "From Synthesis to Analysis of Radical Inhibitors," he devised an economical new form of a "lab on a chip" that miniaturizes laboratory procedures to a surface the size of a coin.

"A lab on a chip normally costs $5,000. Mine costs just $15 because I do it with standard printed circuit technology," he explained. "I didn't think it would work at first. When it did, it was an amazing feeling." Schulz has been experimenting with chemistry since first grade and has built a small laboratory in his backyard. He also develops electronics, which gave him the idea to try using printed circuits for his lab on a chip.

With new methods to synthesize and analyze radical inhibitors like flavonoids, he said, "it's possible to have more flavonoid structures than nature has. This may help us prevent diseases like cancer or cardiovascular disease." Schulz plans to study chemistry at the University of Münster, in Germany.