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Elizabeth Nathan & Gabriella Pollack

January 24, 2012 by · Comments Off on Elizabeth Nathan & Gabriella Pollack 

Elizabeth Nathan & Gabriella Pollack, The National Gallery for America’s Young Inventors is the only nationally recognized hall of fame for student inventors, established in 1993 and given permission by the adult National Inventors Hall of Fame Board in Washington, D.C. to archive and enshrine great student inventions and inventors K-12.
Elizabeth Nathan and Gabriella Pollack (17-year-olds) invent Nathan and Pollack syringe to help prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS.
Elizabeth Nathan and Gabriella Pollack (17-year-olds) invent Nathan and Pollack syringe to help prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS. Elizabeth Nathan and Gabriella Pollack, both 17-year-olds, came up with the idea of inventing a nonreusable syringe to “help stop the spread of AIDS.”

The idea for the mechanism inside the syringe works on the same principle as a cocktail umbrella. In fact, it is where the idea originally came from.

After the initial use, the syringe plunger becomes immobilized. And if an individual pulls the plunger out, the needle breaks off so it cannot be used again.

“I came up with the idea after reading an article about AIDS,” says Elizabeth. At the time, Elizabeth’s chemistry class was also using a syringelike device to demonstrate the relationship between pressure and volume.

“We wrote up our idea and entered it in the NYNEX Science and Technology Awards competition,” says Gabriella. “We didn’t have to make a prototype [model],” she adds, “but we had to write a paper describing the reason for the invention, and the invention itself. “Our invention won first prize at the competition: $15,000 each and grant money to develop the intervention with a university,” says Gabriel.

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