Georgia teenager helps discover preventative COVID option

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A Gwinnett County high schooler just helped discover a preventative solution that might stop the COVID virus. He has already presented the findings at Harvard, MIT, and Johns Hopkins.

Sahil Sood is a 17-year-old senior at Lambert High School in Suwanee.

“Essentially, we created a targeted drug delivery system for the treatment of COVID-19. What that means is we stop the virus from replicating,” said Sood.

He didn’t make these discoveries alone. During Sood’s sophomore year he partnered with a local professor and a full team of people.

“I can’t credit it all to me, a lot of this work was done by my mentors, by the professor I work with, the grad students in the lab,” said Sood.

He had personal connections to COVID; the disease impacted his family directly, which makes the research findings even more meaningful.

“Three high-level universities have actually came and invited me to speak at their conferences; mainly Johns Hopkins University Global Health Conference, Harvard at their Science Research Conference and recently MIT at their undergraduate research conference,” said Sood.

If the medication makes it through rounds of clinical trials and testing, the drug essentially would act as a preventive measure to avoid COVID entirely.

“We are able to deliver a formulation directly to the lungs that can stop the enzymes that allow COVID-19 to multiply,” said Sood “This formulation is designed for people who may go into a high-risk environment, like an airplane and worry about potentially contracting COVID, you could take something like this beforehand as a preventative measure.”

Sahil is focused on college applications. He wants to be a physician.

“I do see hope. I see people who are cognizant of the problems our society has, cognizant of the issues we face today, and are actively thinking of ways to try and combat them. Even at such a young age,” said Sood.

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