September marked the latest development in Yuri Milner’s 2024 Breakthrough Junior Challenge: the announcement of the 16 finalists. To be a finalist in this ever-popular contest is a major achievement. Over 2,300 teens entered by creating a short video that makes a challenging scientific concept easier to understand — and the standard is as high as ever.
Now, the Selection Committee is whittling the list of 16 finalists down to 5 (plus the Popular Vote winner — the entrant with the most social media reactions on their video). One of these six young people will be crowned the Breakthrough Junior Challenge champion.
The anticipation for the champion announcement is building. The winner will claim fantastic prizes: a $250,000 college scholarship, a $150,000 science lab for their school, and $50,000 for a teacher who inspired them.
Here are three of the finalists and one of the Regional Champions, who landed the most social media reactions in Europe during the Popular Vote phase of the competition.
1. 16-Year-Old Jasmine Eyal From the Czech Republic
In her video, Jasmine shares the screen with her grandmother, who is diabetic. Jasmine explains that her grandmother has to take insulin injections before every meal.
However, scientists have recently discovered that they can modify beta cells to release insulin in response to music. Jasmine explains how this form of mechanogenetic cellular engineering could one day offer an alternative to insulin injections for diabetics.
2. 17-Year-Old Chetan Yenigalla From the U.S.
In his video, Chetan explains why ultrasound holds the key to the future of medicine. He introduces sonogenetics, a process that stimulates and controls genetically marked cells using ultrasonic waves.
Originally, scientists tested this process on roundworms because they have a cell surface receptor called TRP-4 that is responsive to ultrasound. However, Chetan notes that mammalian cells are incompatible with TRP-4, which means human cells don’t respond to ultrasound.
That said, a new scientific discovery has revealed that the channel protein TRPA1 is compatible with human cells and responds to ultrasound. This opens up possibilities for treatments involving genetic modification.
3. 14-Year-Old Mikayla Young From Singapore
In her video, Mikayla becomes a secret Cas9 agent who explains how scientists use this enzyme to edit the DNA of a target cell in the CRISPR gene editing process.
The Bond-esque video walks through the process as Agent Cas9 uses a guide RNA and a tracer RNA to infiltrate a cell’s nucleus, recognise the target, and bind to this to create a double-strand break in the DNA.
Mikayla finishes the video by exploring some of CRISPR’s applications, which include higher-quality crops, mosquitoes that reduce the spread of malaria, and gene therapy that combats inherited diseases.
4. 18-Year-Old Gurdit Singh From the UK
Gurdit is highly commended as the contest’s Europe Regional Champion. This means his video collected more social media reactions than any other in the continent.
In his video, Gurdit delves into spectroscopy. He gives a demonstration using plastic stairs and plastic atoms on an elastic band. The stairs represent an atom’s energy levels, the ground represents the nucleus, and the elastic band represents the electromagnetic force.
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge Founders: Julia and Yuri Milner
Julia and Yuri Milner are the creators of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge. Having signed the Giving Pledge in 2012, they agreed to donate large sums of wealth to charitable projects. They have launched many of their own philanthropic projects through their Breakthrough Foundation.
Aside from the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, these include:
- The Breakthrough Prize — the planet’s biggest award in science. Scientists win $3 million prizes for their groundbreaking discoveries in physics, maths, and the life sciences.
- The Breakthrough Initiatives — space science programmes that peel back the layers of the Universe in search of extraterrestrial signals.
- Tech For Refugees — an organisation that partners with tech leaders to support refugees in need of assistance worldwide.
Yuri Milner is also the author of Eureka Manifesto: The Mission for Our Civilization, which lays out a roadmap for humanity to embrace its mission — to explore and understand the Universe.
