Meet Bailey Quinn Frank, 15, who won $25,000 for her low-cost air sampler among nearly 2,000 applicants

Bailey Quinn Frank, 15, from Fort Lauderdale, who built an air sampler with a small fan and filter paper to collect bacterial DNA (Image Credit: Society For Science) A 15-year-old student from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has won a $25,000 science award for developing an affordable device that collects airborne bacterial DNA, with the potential to help communities monitor environmental health risks. Bailey Quinn Frank received the top prize at the 2026 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge, announced on October 27. According to the official announcement by Society for Science, Bailey designed a low-cost environmental DNA sampler using a small fan and filter paper to collect airborne bacteria. She was selected as the winner from a group of 30 finalists chosen from nearly 2,000 applicants across 47 states and five US territories.How Bailey developed an affordable air samplerBailey’s project focused on environmental DNA, commonly known as eDNA, which allows researchers to study genetic material collected from the environment and identify organisms present in a particular location. She explored whether an inexpensive device could capture airborne genetic material and suppor...