Rising stars of 2017: research scientist Krtin Nithiyanandam
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Throwing around phrases like "chelating agents" and "quantum dots", Krtin Nithiyanandam is confidently explaining his research, barely batting an eyelid as the laboratory argot trips off his tongue. The project, an award-winning approach to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease years before the telltale amyloid beta plaques appear in the brain, would be admirable in itself. But it is made even more impressive by the fact that Nithiyanandam is just 16.
The Surrey schoolboy is no stranger to the press, having scooped headlines with his work, and there's already a hint of the showman about him. "I had always wanted to do a research project really just because I thought doing something new would be quite cool," he says. "At school you do experiments, but most of the time you are repeating experiments that have been done thousands of times before so it is difficult to get excited by it."
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