High School seniors Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao want to continue pursuing a solution for how to make plastic decompose using natural bacteria already evolving on the planet.
The two were finalists for Canada’s top student biotechnology award, the 2012 Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge, where their project was judged to have the greatest commercial potential of any project entry, valued at $10 million. They were later invited to the TED 2013 conference to share their ideas.
Speaking to a packed audience of venture capitalists, scientists, philanthropists and people used to funding innovative research, the two Vancouver students explained how, on just a whim, they discovered bacteria in the Fraser River capable of destroying plastics, reports the Vancouver Sun.