Meet Iris Shen, 17, who tested blood cancer drugs and won $150,000 science prize
Iris Shen, a 17-year-old student from Texas, won a $150,000 prize in the 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search. She successfully tested blood-cancer drugs on clams, demonstrating that marine organisms could serve as effective models for medical research.
Why it matters
This research offers a novel, potentially more efficient method for drug discovery that could reduce reliance on traditional laboratory animal models.
Iris Shen, a 17-year-old student from The Woodlands, Texas, has earned third place and a $150,000 award in the 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search for an unusually creative approach to blood-cancer research. Instead of relying only on conventional laboratory models, Shen tested a potential cancer drug in clams to determine whether these animals could serve as an animal model for blood-cancer drug discovery.
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