Sophie Watson has been dubbed the state’s “brainiest” student, after winning Queensland’s Brain Bee Challenge on Tuesday.
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The 14-year-old from Sommerville House outsmarted the 170 finalists in the competition, which was hosted by UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute and tests students on anatomy and neuroscience.
Sophie will now turn her focus to the national championships and hopefully the Brain Bee world finals next year.
“I definitely want to do science in university and probably biological sciences. I am really interested in neuroscience, so hopefully I could go on to do something like that,” she said.
“I’d really like to help people’s lives as I get older.”
After making it to the final round of the competition, Sophie and 10 others entered a final brainy battle round where they were quizzed in front of an audience.
Sophie sealed the win when she was correctly able to identify which disease affects the nervous system, causes weakness and is twice as common in female as it is in males.
The answer is autoimmune neuromuscular disease Myasthenia Gravis.
Sophie follows in the footsteps of fellow Sommerville House student Eva Wang, who won the Queensland and national competition last year.