A 14-year-old Indian-American girl has won a $25,000 young scientist challenge for a discovery that could provide a potential treatment for Covid-19. Anika Chebrolu, an eighth grader from Frisco in Texas, won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, regarded as the US' premier middle school science competition, for her work using in-silico methodology for drug discovery to find a molecule that can selectively bind to the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 virus in an attempt to find a cure for the coronavirus pandemic, according to the 3M Challenge website. 3M is an American manufacturing company based in Minnesota. 

Chebrolu said she decided to participate in the contest after she came down with a severe case of the flu last year, KSAT reported. Her focus changed when COVID-19 began to sweep across the country. She also was driven by the scope of the pandemic and the people who were suffering. "We just always have this constant fear who’s going to be affected by the coronavirus,” Chebrolu told the television station.

A 14-year-old Indian-American girl has won a $25,000 young scientist challenge for a discovery that could provide a potential treatment for Covid-19. Anika Chebrolu, an eighth grader from Frisco in Texas, won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, regarded as the US' premier middle school science competition, for her work using in-silico methodology for drug discovery to find a molecule that can selectively bind to the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 virus in an attempt to find a cure for the coronavirus pandemic, according to the 3M Challenge website. 3M is an American manufacturing company based in Minnesota. 

Chebrolu said she decided to participate in the contest after she came down with a severe case of the flu last year, KSAT reported. Her focus changed when COVID-19 began to sweep across the country. She also was driven by the scope of the pandemic and the people who were suffering. "We just always have this constant fear who’s going to be affected by the coronavirus,” Chebrolu told the television station.