Country of Residence
United States
Age
17
Project title
The Rosalind Franklin Project
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
The Rosalind Franklin Project is a series of hands-on cancer biology kits for middle school students that makes the invisible biology of cancer visible through low-cost experiments and models of DNA mutation, tumor evolution, immune escape, treatment resistance, and metastasis.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
Personal Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-zhang-690abb2a5/
Project Category
My project is a brand new / emerging idea
Project Stage
Idea (We’re hoping to get started in the future)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
When I was nine, my grandmother was diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer. I was extremely close to her, and suddenly I was hearing words like chemotherapy while watching the treatments that were supposed to help her also make her weaker and exhausted. I knew cancer was dangerous, but I did not understand what was actually happening inside her body. A few doctors took the time to explain things to me in language I could understand, and I still remember how much less frightening the unknown became when someone finally made it make sense. Years later, I began doing cancer biology research myself. For the first time, the disease I had known as one huge, terrifying word broke apart into things I could actually investigate: mutations, cell signaling, immune escape, and treatment resistance. I realized younger students should not have to wait until high school or a research lab to experience that same shift from fear to curiosity. That became the Rosalind Franklin Project. Franklin helped make an invisible structure, DNA, understandable through evidence. I want to do the same for the invisible biology of cancer.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Kids can encounter cancer years before they have the biology to understand it. A grandparent starts chemotherapy. A parent gets diagnosed. They hear words like mutation, tumor, radiation, or immunotherapy, but most resources available to them are either simplified awareness materials or explanations written for adults. I know what that gap feels like because I lived it. At nine, I could see what cancer and treatment were doing to my grandmother, but I could not understand why. The lack of understanding made an already frightening situation feel even more mysterious. The problem is also educational. Cancer is one of the clearest real-world examples of genetics, evolution, cell signaling, immunity, and natural selection, yet younger students rarely get to explore those ideas hands-on. They are usually shown diagrams or told definitions. I want to make cancer biology something a middle school student can investigate, question, and understand before they ever need that knowledge personally.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
The Rosalind Franklin Project will create a reusable, low-cost cancer biology kit for students around ages 10–14. Instead of reading that cancer cells mutate or that treatment resistance evolves, students will physically model those processes and discover the patterns themselves. The first prototype will contain five investigations that follow the story of a tumor. Students will model how DNA mutations accumulate and disrupt normal cell growth, watch different tumor subclones compete, apply a simulated treatment and see a resistant population survive, model how cancer cells can escape immune recognition and how immunotherapy changes that interaction, and explore the barriers a cell must overcome to metastasize. Each activity will include physical materials, an illustrated guide, questions that ask students to predict before seeing the result, and a short explanation connecting what they observed to real cancer biology. The kit will not require wet-lab equipment, prior biology knowledge, or internet access. The first $100 will go directly toward building a small set of reusable prototypes, printing the guides and activity materials, and testing them with middle school students. I will use short pre/post questions and student feedback to identify which activities actually improve understanding and which need to be redesigned. The goal is not to make cancer seem simple. It is to make the science underneath it understandable.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Because this is a new idea, my first goal is intentionally small: build and test the first working version rather than claiming impact before it exists. Within the first three months, I want to assemble 10 reusable prototype kits and pilot them with about 25–30 middle school students. I will measure whether students can explain core ideas such as mutation, treatment resistance, and immune escape before and after using the kit, while also asking whether cancer feels more understandable and whether they want to learn more. I have reason to believe this approach can work. Through a separate cancer-education project I helped create, I have already seen younger students handle real oncology concepts when the format is interactive. Across five workshops, 150 students participated and 95% improved their score on a five-question cancer biology assessment. More important to me, students began asking specific questions about why different cancers need different treatments instead of treating cancer as one mysterious disease. For the Rosalind Franklin Project, success would mean seeing that same change happen through hands-on scientific investigation.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
There are many excellent cancer-awareness resources, and there are science kits for topics like chemistry, robotics, and space. What I rarely see is a kit that treats cancer biology itself as something a young student can investigate. Most cancer education for kids explains the disease to them. The Rosalind Franklin Project asks them to become the scientist. A student will not just read that tumors evolve resistance. They will start with a mixed population of model cells, apply a treatment, observe which cells survive, and figure out why the next generation looks different. They will not just memorize that immunotherapy helps the immune system. They will model recognition and immune escape, change one part of the system, and watch the outcome change. The project is named for Rosalind Franklin because her work represents the kind of learning I want to create. X-ray diffraction helped reveal the structure of something no one could simply look at directly. Cancer has the same educational problem for a child: its most important processes are happening invisibly inside cells. I want students to use evidence and models to make those processes visible. The kit will also be deliberately low-cost and reusable, with no wet-lab equipment or internet required. That means sophisticated ideas normally introduced much later can become accessible in a classroom, library, hospital support program, or living room.
How many people are on your team?
1
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Right now the project is just me, which is intentional at the idea stage. I am designing the first investigations, scientific content, and prototype kit. After the first version is built, I want to bring in a small group of middle school students as co-designers, plus other high school students who can help test activities and improve the instructions. I want the students using the kit to shape what the project becomes, not just receive a finished product.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
My first three months are about turning the idea into something students can actually hold and test. First, I will design five prototype investigations around mutation, tumor evolution, treatment resistance, immune escape, and metastasis, then build about 10 reusable kits with the seed funding. I will also create a short illustrated guide that explains the science without assuming prior biology knowledge. Next, I will run a small pilot with roughly 25–30 middle school students. I will collect pre/post responses, watch where students get confused, ask which activities made them curious, and revise the kit based on what I learn. After that, I want to produce a stronger Version 1 that another teacher, student leader, library, or community program could run without me standing there to explain it. Over the next year, I would like to test the kit in several different settings, build a free downloadable facilitator guide, recruit student co-designers, and lower the cost per kit enough that the model can be reproduced rather than depending on expensive lab equipment. The long-term goal is a cancer biology kit that can travel anywhere a curious kid can.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
I want people to join this project through curiosity, not because I tell them cancer is an important issue. The first people I will activate are the students testing the prototypes. I want them to be co-designers. After every activity, I will ask what confused them, what surprised them, and what they would change for the next student. Their feedback will directly shape Version 1. I also want high school students who already love biology to become facilitators and kit designers. Instead of giving them a script to memorize, I can teach them the underlying cancer biology and let them improve activities, create new models, and eventually lead sessions themselves. To reach people outside the initial team, I plan to share the finished activity guides and simple build lists online so schools, libraries, youth groups, and families can recreate them cheaply. I also want to show the process publicly, including failed prototypes and changes students suggest, because I think seeing an idea being built makes other young people more willing to build their own. My goal is for the project to create more question-askers, not just more people who can repeat cancer facts.
