The 2006 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) offered some $4 million in scholarships, internships, science trips, and other prizes to a field of nearly 1,500 competitors. The students from 47 countries participated.
Setting the pace were the three winners of the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award. The fair's top honors and $50,000 scholarships went to Madhavi Gavini of the Mississippi School for Mathematics & Science in Columbus, Meredith MacGregor of Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado, and Hannah Wolf of Parkland High School in Allentown, PA.
Inspired by her grandmother, who practices holistic medicine called Ayurveda, Gavini, 16, examined extracts of the herb Terminalia chebula, a relative of the walnut that has been used as an antiseptic. Gavini found that the substance kills the drug-resistant infectious bacterium Pseudomonas, which can be fatal to people with compromised immune systems. According to Gavini, no treatment currently on the market can do that.
