Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) meets with Science Talent Search participant Siddhartha Jena in 2012.FLICKR, SENATOR STABENOWThe country’s most prestigious science competition has a new sponsor: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, The New York Times reported today (May 26). Regeneron will invest $100 million over the next 10 years as the sponsor of the Science Talent Search, taking over from computing giant Intel, officials announced today at an event at the American Museum of Natural History.
“I think it’s telling that biotech is replacing the computer industry as the field supporting science fairs,” science writer Carl Zimmer tweeted.
Science Talent Search finalists and winners have collectively gone on to earn 12 Nobel Prizes. George Yancopoulos, Regeneron Laboratories president and chief scientific officer, took ninth place in the competition in 1976, and went on to become a billionaire in pharmaceutical research, according to Science.
