Ottawa student targets cancer for science fair

CTV Ottawa: Ottawa teen's plan to cure cancer 15-year-old Amit Sheer spent months in a lab looking at how to kill cancer cells. His idea just might work. CTV's John Hua reports.

Amit Scheer isn’t even old enough to drive. Still, the 15-year-old from Colonel By Secondary School is targeting one of the world’s deadliest diseases.

The student’s project focuses on programming nanoparticles to identify and target proteins only found in cancer cells.

In other words:

“Nanoparticle gets into cancer cells. Kills them,” says Scheer.

The hard part he says is having the nano particles not attack healthy cells as well.

“It was a bit frustrating because you didn't get it right all the time, but it was really good when that idea evolved and made itself into something that works and something I can present,” he says.

Scheer is now taking his work to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. He’ll be competing against 1600 other high school students from more than 70 countries in Los Angeles, this spring.

“I’ve been in university for almost as many years as Amit has been alive… and he was using the same terminology that I was using,” says Darren Yip, Scheer’s teacher who also worked in the field of medical research.

Scheer will be representing the country with a group of 12 students from Canada.

“I will do my best to represent Canada and represent Ottawa,” says Scheer.

With a report from CTV’s John Hua.