Montco high schooler takes 2nd place at Intel Science Talent Search

Jonah Kallenbach, 17, from Montgomery County just won $75,000 in the 2013 Intel Science Talent Search.

Here’s this from Intel:

Second-place honors and $75,000 went to Jonah Kallenbach, 17, of Ambler, Pa., whose bioinformatics study breaks new ground in predicting protein binding for drug therapy. Jonah solved an open problem first posed several years ago, and his work suggests a new path to drug design by targeting a protein’s disordered regions. His research may open doors to treatment for diseases, such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer and tuberculosis.

The winners were whittled down from a pool of over 1,700 applicants, 300 semifinalists and 40 finalists.

This year’s competition produced 6 semifinalists from the Philadelphia area.

Past finalists have included seven future Nobel Prize winners, five National Medal of Science honorees and 11 MacArthur “geniuses,” according to Intel officials.