Sophomore Nigel Chen Wins Awards at 2026 International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva

After three days of competition against over 1,000 inventions from 35 different countries, Stuyvesant sophomore Nigel Chen won top awards at the 2026 International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, held from March 11 to 14 in Geneva, Switzerland. Chen earned Silver and Bronze medals, as well as the Thailand Best International Invention Award for his team’s work to improve the production of Ganoderic Acid A, a compound with anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor effects, and their specialized bra and gel design for post-operative breast cancer recovery.

Founded in 1973, the annual international championship is the world’s largest exhibition devoted solely to fostering innovation and showcasing new inventions. It is co-organized by the Swiss Federal Government, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Each year, the event draws in thousands of inventions from around 40 countries and regions, with China being the largest competitor.

The competition is run over the course of four days, during which participants are evaluated by an international jury consisting of 135 specialists. There are a variety of awards to be won from the “Prize of the Public” to the “Saudi Innovation Excellence Prize” to the “Thailand Best International Invention Award,” a special prize awarded by the National Research Council of Thailand to the best innovative participants in the contest, which Chen won.

Chen began the project seven years ago when he was living in Taiwan, working with Professor Margaret Yeh, who teaches at Kaohsiung Medical University and specializes in studying mushrooms. Chen first met Yeh when he was only in fourth grade and began working as a lab assistant after being connected with her by one of his mother’s friends, learning more and taking on additional responsibilities over time. The idea for the project originated from Yeh’s experience with mushrooms in traditional Chinese medicine. “Ganoderma Lucidum is an ancient Chinese medicine [and the idea is] to extract the best part of it and make it into a medicine,” Chen said.

However, the process to turn their idea into a reality was incredibly grueling for Chen. “Sometimes I’m stuck in a lab for 48 hours. I haven’t slept, I haven’t washed my body and I felt really tired, and I felt like maybe this isn’t a good idea to spend my time,” Chen said. The process was not only time consuming but also very tedious. “The whole day, what we do is we plant mushrooms,” Chen said. After growing the mushrooms, Chen then had to work on weighing and analyzing them.

A major problem Chen ran into was that while he lives in New York City, his professor lives in Taiwan, and ever since Chen moved to the U.S. a year and a half ago he’s had to occasionally fly back to Taiwan to meet with Professor Yeh to continue working on the project.

Although Chen appreciates all that Yeh has done for him, he still occasionally faces challenges when working with her and following methodical ways of doing things like sanitation. “She’s really, really really picky, and we have to sanitize everything, even if I’m already in the hood, everytime I open the bottle, I have to put it close to the fire to make sure no bacteria goes in, and I get so frustrated, because when I do it, she’ll just go, ‘Put the bottle closer to the fire,’ and I was like oh my god, I know, I know,” Chen said.

However, Chen understands that Yeh does it in good faith, and they have a good relationship even outside of the lab. “Sometimes, well every time, actually, every lunch, every dinner, she brings us out to eat, and she really feeds us really full, she’s like, ‘I don’t think you’re full enough, you’re eating too little,’ and she’s just feeding food into our mouth, and I think that’s [just] her kind of care which [makes me feel nice],” he said.

Despite the process not always being glamorous, Chen still found a sense of fulfillment in his work. “There was once, my Ganoderma Lucidem grew really well, it was really white, almost pure white, and [I just felt] very honored,” Chen said. “Honestly I think it comes out as pretty worth it,” Chen said.

Ultimately, Chen was able to make two major accomplishments through his research. The first was making a special gel and bra for postoperative breast cancer patients to aid in recovery, done by extracting polysaccharides, long chains of sugar molecules, from the lab mushrooms. “[The polysaccharide] regulates your immune system [and] if you make it [into] a gel form, it’s fast and [helps with] skin healing,” Chen said.

The second accomplishment came from the extraction of Ganoderic Acid, a triterpenoid: “[The triterpenoid] has an anti-cancer effect, specifically targeting breast cancer, so how it works is basically you can imagine the compound targets the survival pathway of breast cancer cells, and inhibits it,” Chen said. Although this property has been known and tested for a very long time, it had previously only been found to work on animals and cell cultures and not on humans. “What’s really special about our technology is that we get [the triterpenoid] to a very high concentration [so] that it works on the human body,” Chen said. 

As the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva was his first ever contest, the experience was very new for Chen. “It was pretty exciting [but] also [made me] nervous,” he said. Before entering contests like the one at Geneva, Chen spent a significant amount of time preparing, even having to fly back to Taiwan to meet with Yeh and prepare pitches, create a Powerpoint presentation, and take photos.

Since the contest was in Geneva, where French is the most commonly spoken language, Chen also took the additional step of learning some French phrases to be better equipped to communicate with a French speaking audience. “I practiced a little French dialogue, and I don’t speak French at all […] because sometimes I approach pure French speaking people and I can’t use my English pitch, so I have to kind of approach them and try to start using my French pitch, and kind of use my hand gestures to let them understand what I invented and what I am producing,” Chen said.

Chen enjoyed his experience at the contest, and encourages anyone who happens to be near an invention exhibition to attend. “I think one point I really want to stress is that I think everyone, if they have a chance, if they end up near any invention exhibition, they really should go, even if they’re not competing, because it’s more than a competition, it’s talking, it’s looking at the newest inventions around the world, like what is a trend, what is my major currently doing, I think that’s really important, and I think sometimes you find something that’s really interesting,” Chen said.

For his research, Chen won Silver and Bronze medals and the Thailand Best International Invention Award. Chen has also participated in other contests since the one in Geneva, including the Malaysia Technology Expo, where he won two gold prizes, and looks forward to attending future contests as well. “Actually this Spring Break we went to MTE, Malaysia Technology Expo, and we got two gold prizes, on both our inventions, that was pretty nice. We’re also looking forward to October, going to Germany,” Chen said.

In the future, Chen hopes to continue his work in Ganoderic Acid A extraction and use it to help a larger number of patients. His plan is to create a widely usable pill, which is currently in clinical testing to make sure it works safely on humans. “We want to push this not only to patients, but also to just normal people, so we have to really control the clinical window,” Chen said.