May 21, 2018 | Graduate students mentor high schoolers at CNSI Nanovation

Nikki Lin | May 21, 2018

This article was originally published by the UCLA Newsroom

The UCLA California NanoSystems Institute held its annual Nanovation Competition on Friday, May 25. Leading up to the on-campus finals, UCLA graduate students spent three months mentoring teams from 11 Los Angeles-area high schools, who each developed and pitched their ideas for science-based product concepts. The entries were reviewed by a jury of Los Angeles venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, along with UCLA faculty members.

The team from Westminster High School earned $2,000 worth of science classroom supplies for its winning proposal: dissolvable contact lenses that use pharmacosomes — molecules that act as a drug delivery system — for patients to use after Lasik surgery. Teams from John Marshall High School and Valencia High School finished second and third, earning $1,000 and $500 for school supplies. Prizes were provided by Environmental Research Advocates, a Los Angeles nonprofit that funds scientific research.