A Singapore-born teenager who recently moved to Canada won a national science award for her groundbreaking work on the anti-aging properties of tree pulp, officials said.
Janelle Tam, 16, showed that cellulose, the woody material found in trees that enables them to stand, also acts as a potent anti-oxidant.
“Her super anti-oxidant compound could one day help improve health and anti-aging products by neutralizing more of the harmful free-radicals found in the body,” Bioscience Education Canada said in a statement.
Tam's work involved tiny particles in the tree pulp known as nano-crystalline cellulose (NCC), which is flexible, durable, and also stronger than steel.
Tam , a student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, chemically bound NCC to a well-known nano-particle called a buckminster fullerene, or buckyballs, which are already used in cosmetic and anti-aging products.
“The new NCC-buckyball combination acted like a ‘nano-vacuum,' sucking up free radicals and neutralizing them,” said Bioscience Education Canada.
Since cellulose is already used as filler and stabilizer in many vitamin products, one day Tam hopes NCC will make those products into super-charged free radical neutralizers. “It would be really nice to commercialize this,” said Tam.
“I envision it more as an ingredient that would be added to existing formulations, so it could be added to tablets or bandaids for a wound dressing or it could be added to cosmetic cream.”
