High School seniors Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao want to continue pursuing a solution for how to make plastic decompose using natural bacteria already evolving on the planet.
The two were finalists for Canada’s top student biotechnology award, the 2012 Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge, where their project was judged to have the greatest commercial potential of any project entry, valued at $10 million. They were later invited to the TED 2013 conference to share their ideas.
Speaking to a packed audience of venture capitalists, scientists, philanthropists and people used to funding innovative research, the two Vancouver students explained how, on just a whim, they discovered bacteria in the Fraser River capable of destroying plastics, reports the Vancouver Sun.
“We also found the most efficient degraders came from the local landfill,” Wang was quoted on the TED blog. In summary, “Nature was indeed evolving ways of dealing with the problem, one that we could someday use.”
Especially with the help of innovators like these young adults.
(WATCH their 2012 TED talent search video below, or READ the story from the Vancouver Sun)