Tyler Malkin
8th Grade, Central Middle School
Greenwich, CT
Tyler has suffered from iodine deficiency in the past. “My neck swelled causing a goiter, and I was very tired. I was initially misdiagnosed with a thyroid disorder,” he says. He got the supplements he needed, but “many people with iodine deficiency are not so fortunate, and they end up with serious and sometimes permanent health issues.” Tyler knew that detection tests for iodine were expensive and required access to a lab. He decided to create a test that could be done at home.
Development of a Simple Salivary Rapid Diagnostic for the Detection of Iodine Deficiency
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Project Background
Tyler wanted to create a test for iodine levels that would work with a person’s saliva. He made tiny gold nanoparticles and used sodium thiosulfate. Both iodine and the gold nanoparticles compete to bind to sodium thiosulfate, which means that more iodine would outcompete the gold. The gold nanoparticles are red on their own but show up as blue when they bind to sodium thiosulfate.
When mixed with someone’s saliva, that means the mixture turns red or purple at normal saliva iodine levels because more nanoparticles are free. It’s blue when iodine levels are low, because all the gold nanoparticles are bound up. Tyler tested his with artificial saliva and showed that it reacted with the right color changes to different levels of iodine. Even though it contains a bit of gold, he estimates that the test can be produced for $2.
Beyond the Project
Tyler loves math. “I’m convinced that math is my native language,” he says. He even dressed up as Archimedes for Halloween — when he was nine. Tyler has faced a lot of medical challenges in his life and would like to become a biomedical engineer. “I have experienced first-hand how life changing biotechnology can be,” he says. “I envision a world that where you are born doesn’t dictate whether you get to be healthy, and I am so excited that my research can help kids just like me who don’t currently have access to my resources.”
