An exceptional 17-year-old boy named Rishab Jain has invented an Artificial intelligence capable of producing medicine which earned him a 50,000 dollars worth of cash prize.
Rishab Jain is a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton in the United States who won the 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. He was one of the two who received Regeneron Young Scientist awards of 50,000 dollars.
He won the award for developing an Artificial Intelligence-based model to enable rapid and cost-effective production of drugs, such as recombinant COVID-19 vaccines, using synthetic DNA engineering.
The award is one of the top three awards given at the international science fair, billed as the largest of its kind science fairs in the world according to Oregon Live. Jain also won first place in the biomedical engineering research category.
Jain is a biomedical researcher whose artificial intelligence technology, ICOR, is already being licensed by a biotech company. “I’ve been actually doing research in biomedical technology and biomedicine in general for the last four or five years now,” he said.
He mentioned that his interest in technology started at an early age adding that he first started with programming inspired by his older brother. “Maybe when I was four or five, a lot of my fondest memories come from playing around on the computer,” he said.
Jain stated that the idea of AI started to fascinate him when technologies like Google Home, and Amazon Alexa started coming out when he was in sixth, or seventh grade which made him develop an interest in AI programming.
He stated that the award is not the end but the beginning for him as he wants to apply his algorithm to other types of cells beyond E. coli, and he ultimately wants to improve lives with his research.
Jain said he plans to go to college and start down the path to medical school, to continue his research and get both a Medical degree and Doctorate.
“I’m interested in not only biology but medicine. And that’s why I’ve been in this field of biomedical engineering and applying my skills from engineering to make an impact on a patient’s life,” he said.