Hong Kong teenager and would-be Olympic speed skater wins prestigious science award

A Hong Kong teenager who balances a love for science with a dream to take part in the 2018 Winter Olympics as a speed skater has been named Youth Scientist of the Year for his computer model to test for gene mutations.

Sidney Chu, 15, won in three categories in the Hong Kong Youth Science Technology Innovation Competition for a model designed to detect gene mutations from cancer datasets. 

“It felt like a truly rewarding experience for the two years of work that I had put in,” Chu said.

Chu started the extra-curricular project two years ago with fellow Hong Kong International School pupil Samuel Xu.

After Xu moved to Shanghai, Chu continued to develop the model after an initial disappointment in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.

“Right after middle school I thought I really wanted to launch myself early into [a science] career and give myself a head start. So I decided a pre-collegiate research competition would be fun and help me on that goal.”

The two students worked with professor Nelson Tang Leung-sang of the department of chemical pathology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where they developed one of the professor’s research areas.