Philip Streich, 17
Platteville, Wisconson
Nano Entrepeneur

First Steps: Since he was 10 years old, Streich has lived on a farm, helping tend crops and livestock. Homeschooled since the seventh grade, he began taking science and math courses in the ninth grade at the University of Wisconsin–Platteville. There he teamed up with James Hamilton, a chemistry professor who introduced him to the microscopic carbon cylinders known as nanotubes.

The Challenge: Superstrong carbon nanotubes have a wide array of potential applications, including lighter bulletproof vests and more responsive touch screens, but they have a tendency to clump together, which makes them difficult to work with. To solve the problem, chemists had been coating the nanotubes with various substances, but doing so often altered the tubes’ physical and electrical properties, thus limiting their utility. Streich and Hamilton thought there might be a better way: Dissolving the nanotubes in some sort of solvent would keep them from clumping without altering their properties. But no one knew if there was a solvent that could do the job.

The Solution: Streich custom-built a spectrometer to probe the chemical characteristics of the nanotubes. Using these data, he discovered that the solvent N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidinone would indeed dissolve nanotubes. Streich then went on to find more solvents with the aid of the spectrometer. The project won him more than $100,000 in scholarship money, and he and Hamilton published their results [subscription required] last spring. By June Streich was celebrating an additional $50,000 victory at a state business-plan competition for a nanotech start-up called Graphene Solutions, which he had cofounded with Hamilton. “I never dreamed any of this would be possible,” Streich says. “I really credit my parents’ support for allowing me to try homeschooling. If I had been in the regular school system, I doubt any of this would have developed.”

What’s Next: Streich is planning for college, where he hopes to combine his love of science with politics and the humanities.

Eric Delgado, 18
Bayonne, New Jersey

First Steps: Delgado’s curiosity was sparked when, after 10th grade at Bayonne High School, he worked with Jersey City Medical Center researchers investigating the MRSA bug, a cause of antibiotic-resistant infections, especially in hospitals.

The Challenge: Fighting antibiotic-resistant germs means coming up with a way to counter the tricks bacteria use to thwart antibiotics. One trick used by some bacteria is to eject antibiotics through so-called efflux pumps embedded in their cellular membranes. Delgado wondered: Was there a way to disable these pumps? And how could he do such complicated research in a high school lab?

The Solution: Working with pathogenic bacteria would be far too dangerous in a school setting, so Delgado focused on disabling an efflux pump in the common bacterium E. coli. Marie Aloia, a teacher, helped Delgado contact researchers across the country for advice and supplies. One helped him identify lab techniques that would allow him to avoid hazardous chemicals. Another supplied a plant compound (diosmetin) known to disable efflux pumps in other bacteria. “The Internet has definitely made it much easier. You can do things kids from 10 years ago wouldn’t have been able to do,” Delgado says. After school and on weekends for two years, Delgado measured how much antibiotic the organisms pumped out and how much was needed to kill them off after exposure to diosmetin and other candidate compounds. Delgado’s work won fifth place at the Intel Science Talent Search in 2008.

What’s Next: Delgado is currently attending Yale University. “I’ve always been interested in the health sector,” he says. “Having real-world applications helps.”