Oakland County teen's idea could protect thousands from flu

The next time you feel like you’ve accomplished a lot, consider this: Madeleine Yang might have figured out a way to keep thousands of people from getting the flu. She’s also performed at Carnegie Hall twice. And she’s just 17.

Yang, a student at Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills, has been working for about a year and a half on a project that could eventually result in a more effective flu vaccine that could be manufactured more quickly than current vaccines.

Yang of Bloomfield Hills recently found out she won fourth place and $100,000 in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. She and 39 other finalists journeyed to Washington, D.C., where they spent a week presenting their projects to a panel of judges. The top 10 projects were announced at a formal gala March 12.

The competition was tough. These were no ordinary science fair projects.

The top winner, Ana Humphrey of Alexandria, Virginia, designed a mathematical model to find planets that NASA hasn’t. She got $250,000 for the model to determine the possible locations of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — that may have been missed by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope.

Other top-placing projects included: 

•  A 3D-printed smartphone attachment and artificial intelligence software to automatically identify blood diseases.
• A computer model to better predict refugee migrations on a regional scale.
•  A virtual winglet, which could potentially improve the stability and efficiency of aircraft.
• A process to induce photosynthesis in human stem cells, allowing them to produce their own oxygen, which could have implications in the treatment of heart attack, stroke and cancer.

Yang said she was inspired to work on developing a better vaccine after a particularly virulent strain of influenza struck during the 2017-18 flu season, causing an estimated 80,000 deaths in the United States alone. She worked on the project with Fei Wen, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Most flu vaccine today is manufactured using chicken eggs. That method takes months and requires hundreds of millions of eggs, making it difficult to make enough of the vaccine to fight a pandemic and allowing viruses to mutate. The vaccine Yang hopes can be developed wouldn’t require eggs, shortening production time and allowing the manufacture of larger quantities.

Though Yang is grateful to have won her prize, she said it was really the experience of the week in Washington that was most valuable.

“It was not only extremely challenging, but it was also very interesting. We had people ranging from CEOs to Nobel laureates. I still think that’s the main takeaway from this … the whole experience not just the idea of winning. The whole experience was incredible.”

Meeting and interacting with the other young scientists at the competition was one of the best parts of the experience, Yang said.

More:Michigan's new cyberbullying law about to take effect: What to know

More:Detroit Country Day School sued for racial discrimination over marijuana allegation

Yang, the daughter of Mei Li and Jun Yang, who work in materials science and mechanical engineering for Ford, showed early signs of interest in science.

“From a very young ageshe has been very curious,” said her mother. “She asked us so many questions.”

At the beach, she would ask why the waves looked white, her mother said. She was fascinated by puzzles and numbers. In third grade, she worked with another student on a project about how the brain works.

“There’s a basic sense of discovery that’s in both science and math,” Yang said. “It’s very logical and systematic.” And she said science, especially medicine, is one of the most direct ways to have an impact on people’s lives. “It touches all people’s lives,” she said, noting that through medicine it’s possible to help thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of people. “And that’s a very fulfilling thing to do.”

Mei Li said helping others has always driven her daughter. “She has always said, ‘I want to have an impact on the world.’ ”

Yang credits her parents with encouraging her research. “This whole thing wouldn’t have been possible without their love and support,” she said. “And without them driving me back and forth between Bloomfield Hills and Ann Arbor.”

And she’s grateful to teachers at Detroit Country Day, including math teacher Ross Arseneau, who she said supports academic competitions and fosters “an environment in which math and science are cool and not nerdy," and Latin teacher Brad McNellen, who has offered her valuable life and career advice.

Yang is also an accomplished musician, having performed twice on violin at Carnegie Hall after winning international competitions. She has studied both violin and piano since about the age of 5.

She’s busy with other activities as well. She participates in math and science Olympiads, something she has been doing since elementary school. She’s the captain of her high school math club and the editor of its science magazine. She also coaches a middle school math counts team. And she loves to sail with the Pontiac Yacht Club, her mother said.

As for the future, Yang hopes to attend MIT, Harvard or Stanford, all of which have strong STEM programs and promote the idea of changing the world through science and technology. She has already been accepted at MIT and is waiting to hear from Harvard and Stanford. She hopes to earn a doctorate in science and a medical degree and eventually to lead or possibly create a pharmaceutical company.

She also hopes to encourage girls who want to go into math, science, engineering and technology. “The journey to science or math is not always easy,” she said, “but you can’t stop trying or you can’t stop believing. The beauty of being able to persevere is that you can be proud of the fruits of your labor."