Every year, roughly 2,000 students from 60+ countries compete at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, the largest pre-college science competition in the world. Most projects are impressive. A handful are something else entirely: research that identifies a gap professional scientists hadn’t closed, proposes a testable solution, and produces findings rigorous enough to earn recognition from industry and academia alike.
These five projects cleared that bar before their creators turned 18.
A $0.03 Test for Pancreatic Cancer
Category: Medicine & Health Sciences | Award: Gordon E. Moore Award, $75,000 (Intel ISEF 2012)
The Problem
Pancreatic cancer carries a five-year survival rate under 6%, not because it’s untreatable, but because it’s almost never caught early. The standard diagnostic test (CA19-9 via ELISA) cost hundreds of dollars per run, took up to 12 hours, and required trained lab technicians. Routine screening was economically impossible.
The Approach
The project developed a paper biosensor using single-walled carbon nanotubes and antibodies targeting mesothelin, a protein overexpressed in early-stage pancreatic cancer. Filter paper was dip-coated with the nanotube-antibody mixture, making it electrically conductive. When a blood sample containing mesothelin was applied, the antibodies bound to the protein, expanding the molecular complex and increasing resistance across the nanotube network. That resistance change, measurable with a $50 ohmmeter, correlated directly to mesothelin concentration. The test required 1/6 of a drop of blood.
Why It Mattered
The sensor cost $0.03 per run and returned results in five minutes, 168 times faster and 26,667 times cheaper than ELISA, with 90%+ accuracy detecting mesothelin above diagnostic threshold levels. A provisional patent was filed. Oncologists and biotech researchers took notice, with media coverage from Science, Smithsonian, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The project sparked broader conversation about what low-cost biosensor design could look like across cancer diagnostics.
The Scale Signal
If early detection raised pancreatic cancer’s five-year survival rate from 6% to a projected 50%+, the downstream impact would represent tens of thousands of lives annually in the US alone. The $0.03 test made a case that cost was a solvable variable, not a fixed constraint.
A Room-Temperature Ebola Test Built on Silk
Category: Biomedical & Health Sciences | Award: Google Science Fair Grand Prize, $50,000 (2015)
The Problem
During the 2014–2015 West African Ebola outbreak, the limiting factor wasn’t treatment, it was diagnosis. Existing ELISA-based Ebola tests required uninterrupted refrigeration from manufacture to deployment, cost up to $1,000 per test, and took 12 hours to produce results. In rural communities in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, where the outbreak was most acute, reliable electricity and cold-chain logistics were both scarce. Patients were often contagious before a diagnosis was confirmed.
The Approach
The project developed a portable, single-use Ebola Assay Card (EAC) using silk fibroin, a protein derived from silkworm cocoons with exceptional stabilizing properties, to embed the biochemical reagents required for lateral-flow Ebola detection. Silk eliminated the need for refrigeration entirely, allowing the card to remain stable at room temperature for up to three weeks. The card required only a serum sample and water to activate: a color-change readout confirmed positive or negative Ebola antigen detection within 30 minutes. No electricity, no lab technician, no cold chain.
Why It Mattered
The test cost $25 and detected Ebola viral antigens within 30 minutes, compared to $1,000 and 12 hours for existing methods. The silk stabilization approach, developed in collaboration with Tufts University biomedical engineers who had pioneered silk fibroin applications, represented a meaningful methodological advance. Researchers noted the framework was extensible to other viral diseases including HIV, Dengue, Lyme disease, and Yellow Fever: the silk stabilization logic is not Ebola-specific.
The Scale Signal
The project addressed a structural failure in outbreak response infrastructure: tests that require cold chains can’t reach the communities that need them most. The EAC design inverted that constraint, the test could be manufactured centrally, shipped at ambient temperature, and administered in the field with minimal training.
A Pocket-Sized Lead Detector, Built by a Seventh-Grader
Category: Environmental Engineering | Award: Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, $25,000 (2017)*
Note: The 3M Young Scientist Challenge is a parallel national competition for middle school students (grades 5–8), distinct from ISEF. It is included here because the project’s technical and scientific merit warrants it, and because it remains one of the most widely recognized examples of middle school-level research producing real-world applicable technology.
The Problem
As the Flint, Michigan water crisis made visible, lead contamination in drinking water is not a historical artifact, it affects more than 5,300 water systems in the United States. Existing home testing methods were slow, unreliable, and required samples to be sent to a lab. There was no portable, real-time consumer device for lead detection.
The Approach
The project produced Tethys (named for the Greek Titan goddess of fresh water): a compact, 3D-printed device about the size of a deck of cards containing a disposable cartridge of chemically treated carbon nanotube arrays, an Arduino-based signal processor with Bluetooth, and a paired smartphone app. The carbon nanotubes are sensitive to changes in the flow of electrons; the tubes are lined with atoms that have an affinity to lead, which adds a measurable resistance to the electron flow. When the cartridge is dipped in contaminated water, the lead-reactive atoms bind to lead ions, creating resistance in the electron flow. The Arduino processor measures that resistance and transmits results to the app in real time: safe or unsafe, immediately readable by anyone.
Why It Mattered
Over the course of the summer, the inventor worked with 3M scientists to bring the proposed sensor from a cardboard prototype to a functioning device with 3D-printed hardware and working software. The project attracted coverage from NPR, CNN, and Scientific American, and led to follow-on partnerships with Denver Water’s lab team to refine the sensor’s specificity. The inventor appeared on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list before reaching high school.
The Scale Signal
Traditional lead testing requires sending a water sample to a lab and waiting days for results. Tethys moved that timeline to seconds, at a fraction of the cost, and designed it to be used by people with no scientific training, in their own homes.
A Magnet-Free EV Motor, Built from 3D-Printed Plastic and Copper Wire
Category: Engineering — Electrical | Award: George D. Yancopoulos Innovator Award, $75,000 (Regeneron ISEF 2022)
The Problem
The dominant electric vehicle motor design relies on rare-earth permanent magnets — neodymium, samarium, dysprosium — that are expensive to source, environmentally damaging to mine, and geopolitically concentrated: the vast majority of global rare-earth exports come from China. The EV industry’s sustainability case has a supply chain problem at its center. Synchronous reluctance motors (SynRMs) had long been understood as a magnet-free alternative, but their torque and efficiency weren’t competitive with permanent magnet motors for vehicle-grade applications.
The Approach
The project set out to redesign the synchronous reluctance motor to improve torque at vehicle-relevant speeds. Standard SynRMs use a steel rotor with air gaps cut into it that aligns with a rotating magnetic field, the magnetism of the steel generates torque, and more torque is produced when the saliency ratio (the difference in magnetism between the steel and the non-magnetic air gaps) is greater. Instead of relying only on air gaps, the project introduced an additional magnetic field into the rotor design, the specific mechanism was withheld pending patent consideration. The prototype was built from 3D-printed plastic, copper wire windings, and a steel rotor, tested with a laser tachometer and power meters over a year of iterative development.
Why It Mattered
The prototype increased torque by 39% and efficiency by 31% at 300 RPM. Smithsonian Magazine covered the project; engineering publications noted that BMW and MAHLE are pursuing magnet-free motor development for identical supply-chain reasons. The work demonstrated a viable design direction for a problem that professional electrical engineers are actively trying to solve, from a high school senior’s class research project.
The Scale Signal
The EV market is projected to reach 40%+ of new car sales globally by 2030. Every vehicle using rare-earth magnets is a node in a supply chain with known fragility and environmental costs. A manufacturable magnet-free motor at competitive torque would remove that dependency entirely.
A Chemical Doping Strategy That Could Change What’s Possible Inside the Human Body
Category: Materials Science | Award: George D. Yancopoulos Innovator Award, $75,000 (Regeneron ISEF 2024)
The Problem
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) represent one of the most promising frontiers in biomedical technology: flexible, organic devices that can interface with biological tissue in ways rigid silicon electronics cannot. Researchers have been developing them for deep brain stimulators, pacemakers, biosensors, and artificial muscles. The problem blocking commercialization is performance — specifically, n-type (electron-conducting) OECTs suffer from instability in biological environments and slow signal transmission. No viable solution had been identified.
The Approach
The project investigated chemical doping as a method to improve OECT performance: introducing organic salt compounds to alter the molecular structure of the transistor’s polymer channel, then characterizing the results using current-voltage tests and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Various organic salts were tested to determine their impact on device performance. The research revealed that one particular salt — tetrabutylammonium chloride — significantly improved the performance of OECTs. The findings demonstrated a 97% increase in amplification abilities, a 77% improvement in switching speed, and enhanced sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio.
Why It Mattered
OECTs are among the most powerful transistors to date, combining both ionic and electronic conduction, a mechanism that makes these devices desirable for implantable bioelectronics in the human body, particularly as biosensors, deep brain stimulators, pacemakers, and artificial muscles, reducing reliance on invasive medical procedures. The judging co-chair for materials science at ISEF called it “our number one project, without a shadow of a doubt“, noting unanimous agreement among the judges. The doping approach is low-cost and generalizable: it doesn’t require new materials or new manufacturing processes.
The Scale Signal
Bioelectronics researchers have spent years trying to make OECTs stable enough to implant. A 97% improvement in amplification and 77% improvement in switching speed, achieved through a simple, inexpensive chemical treatment, is a meaningful step toward clinical viability for devices that could eventually monitor glucose, regulate heartbeat, or stimulate neural activity without traditional surgical hardware.
What These Science Research Projects Have in Common
Each project identified a specific, measurable gap, not a broad topic. “Cancer is bad” is a topic. “There is no screening method that costs under $5 and returns results in under an hour” is a research problem. Every project here started with the second kind of framing, which is what made it possible to design a test, build a prototype, and produce findings that could be evaluated against a standard.
Each project had access to mentorship and resources beyond a classroom. The pancreatic cancer sensor was refined in a Johns Hopkins lab. The Ebola assay card was developed with biomedical engineers at Tufts. The lead detector was built with 3M scientists. The motor project emerged from a school-sanctioned year-long research class. The OECT doping work was conducted in a materials science research environment. None of these were solo efforts executed in isolation.
And in every case, the science fair or competition was a milestone, not the starting point. The research came first.
These five categories, medicine, biomedical, environmental engineering, electrical engineering, and materials science, are each fields with significant talent demand and decades of open research problems ahead. A student who arrives at a university having done rigorous work in any one of them doesn’t just stand out in an application, they arrive with a research identity already formed.
If your student has a specific problem they keep returning to, that’s where research begins. The rest is structure, access, and time.
Explore how Future Forward Labs connects middle and high school students with PhD mentors to help your student build the next discovery in science!
