A project of Vietnamese students won a third prize at the 2023 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (Regeneron ISEF 2023) Grand Awards, making Vietnam one of 33 countries and territories to be honoured at the competition.

The winning project on pharmacological effects on the central nervous system of Litsea cubeba fruit and leaf essential oils based on pharmacological network in the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBIO) category was developed by Nguyen Thi Mai Anh and Nguyen Binh Giang from the High School for Gifted Students of the University of Science under the Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU).

Another project, a quadruped robot model used to assist search and rescue operations in landslide-affected areas by Le Minh Duc and Le Nguyen Trung Kien from Le Hong Phong High School for Gifted Students in Ho Chi Minh City earned a Special Awards presented by the US Agency for International Development.

REGENERON ISEF 2023’s organising board highly valued Vietnam's extensive promotion of scientific research and the organisation of an annual science and engineering competition for high school students, saying that these are an important foundation to gradually improve the quality of scientific research in general and projects for national and international competitions in particular.

Initiated in 1952, ISEF is the world's largest global science competition for high school students. Every year, about 1,800 high school students from 80 countries and territories around the world introduce their research results in 22 fields of the competition.

This year's competition was held in Dallas, the US, from May 14 - 19, attracting the participation of 1,600 students from 61 countries and territories with 1,302 projects. Vietnam had seven projects competing in the competition./.