Agency report
 
Houston, Sep 13: Four Indian-American teenagers have been named as this year's Fellows of nonprofit organisation Davidson Institute for Talent Development, an honour for "prodigiously gifted" students under the age of 18 years.

The "Davidson Fellows"--Shivani Sud, Sheela Krishnan, Varun Kumar and Anarghya Vardhana--have also won scholarships ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 for their projects in the fields of science, medicine and mathematics.

They will be recognised in Washington on September 27 along with 16 other fellows from across the country.

"The Davidson fellows are success stories because they've nurtured their genius by seeking out mentors, relying on strong family support and working diligently to achieve their goals," said Bob Davidson, the co-founder of the Reno-based institute, which was established in 1999 to support profoundly gifted students.

Shivani, 16, of Durham, has won $50,000 scholarship for her project in science. She developed a technology to deliver chemotherapeutic molecules to cancerous cells with increased efficiency.

Her findings can assist with more efficient drug delivery by overcoming cell membrane barriers, one of the greatest challenges facing conventional chemotherapy. Through protein transduction, Shivani developed a drug delivery system focused on an amino acid region of the HIV-1 Tat protein that allows larger medicinal molecules to pass into the cell.