Teen wins $100,000 for creating new cancer treatment

A teenager has won a $100,000 scholarship for creating a particle that could help save the lives of future cancer patients. Angela Zhang, 17, from Cupertino in California, won the Siemens Foundation's annual high school science competition, in which she was the only female individual in the final.

Angela told reporters that she got the idea to do her science project on cancer from her family. Her great grandfather had liver cancer and her grandfather died of lung cancer. “I asked, Why does this happen? Why does cancer cause death? What are we doing to fix this?’”

The particle Angela created will help deliver cancer drugs directly to tumor cells so that they don’t affect the healthy cells around them. It could take scientists 25 years to make it safe to use on patients.