What happened in 2024
The Society for Science lists Cong second in the top ten of the 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search, behind Achyuta Rajaram of Phillips Exeter Academy. He was a senior at Ossining High School in Westchester County, New York, and one of 40 finalists called to Washington for the final round of judging.
The work, as the competition records it, showed that the tissue a cancer cell originates in shapes the way that cell handles energy and raw material - its metabolism. Two tumours can carry similar mutations and still run on different chemistry because they began in different organs.
Why tissue of origin matters
For decades cancer was classified by where it started: breast, lung, pancreas. Genomics then pushed the field towards classifying by mutation instead, on the logic that the broken gene, not the address, drives the disease. Work on metabolism has pulled some of that emphasis back, because a cell's chemical habits are set long before it turns malignant.
The practical consequence is in treatment. A drug that starves a tumour of one nutrient may work in an organ where that pathway is central and fail in another where it is not. Knowing which of a tumour's habits are inherited from its tissue is therefore not an academic distinction.
What the contest demands
The Science Talent Search is judged on original research and on the entrant's grasp of it under questioning by a panel of working scientists. Finalists defend their projects in person in Washington; the placements are decided there, not on the written submission alone.
The Society's account of the 2025 edition, the 84th, gives a sense of the scale: 40 finalists, $1.8 million shared among them and $3.1 million awarded across the competition, at a ceremony at the National Building Museum. The 2024 pages used here do not state that year's prize amounts, so none is attributed to Cong.
What is documented, and what is not
Documented: second place in 2024, the age of 17, Ossining High School, and the subject of the research as the competition summarises it.
Not documented in these sources: the cancer types studied, the laboratory or mentor behind the work, whether the research has been published in a journal, his university destination and anything about his family. The Society publishes placements and project titles rather than the research papers themselves.
How rare a top-ten placement is
Roughly 2,000 American seniors submit to the Science Talent Search in a typical year; 300 are named scholars, 40 become finalists, ten are placed. A second place is therefore a result reached by one student in the country in a given year, in a contest whose alumni include Nobel laureates and National Medal of Science holders.
It is also, deliberately, an early marker rather than a verdict. Nothing in the sources gathered here records what Cong did after March 2024, and this page does not guess. Any claim about his current university or laboratory should be checked against a named source.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rishi Shiv Prasanna | India | Winning the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in 2023 at eight, for… | Age 0 |
| Cannan Huey-You | United States | Presenting research on a Milky Way gas cloud at the American Astronomical… | Age 11 |
| Ángela Olazarán Laureano | Mexico | An AI medical assistant built in Veracruz, designed to work where there is | Age 14 |
| Émer Hickey | Ireland | Co-winning the 2014 Google Science Fair grand prize | Age 16 |
| Thomas Cong | United States | Second place, Regeneron Science Talent Search 2024 | Age 17 |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- He placed second in the 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search
- He was 17 and a student at Ossining High School, New York
- His project concerned the influence of tissue of origin on cancer cell metabolism
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- The prize amount for 2024, not stated in these sources
- Which cancers and which metabolic pathways the study covered
- Any mentor, laboratory or journal publication
- What he is studying or doing now
Questions people ask about Thomas Cong
How old is Thomas Cong?
He was 17 at the time of the 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search; his birth year is recorded as 2007. No exact date of birth appears in these sources.
What did Thomas Cong research?
How the tissue a cancer cell originates in shapes that cell's metabolism - the chemistry it uses to take in energy and build itself.
Where did he place?
Second in the 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search, according to the Society for Science's own top-ten listing.
Which school did he attend?
Ossining High School in Westchester County, New York.
How much did he win?
The 2024 pages used here do not state prize amounts. The Society's 2025 release records $175,000 for second place in that later year.
Where is Thomas Cong now?
No source used here reports his university or current work. Nothing after March 2024 is documented.
Is Thomas Cong on Wikipedia?
He has no article of his own in the sources used here; his placement appears on the Society for Science's pages.
Who are Thomas Cong's parents?
No source used here names his family, and this page does not speculate about them.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Thomas’s story?
Where did Thomas Cong place in the 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search?
What did his research concern?
Which school did he attend?
Sources
- Regeneron STS 2024 (top 10) — Society for Science
- Regeneron Science Talent Search 2024 Finalists — Society for Science
- Regeneron Science Talent Search 2025 Awards More Than $1.8 Million to High School Seniors — Society for Science, 2025-03-11
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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