Federal agents in hazmat gear swarmed an Irvine, California home late last month but the teenager who lives there says they busted up a home science project, not a weapons lab. Seventeen-year-old Amalvin Fritz, who skipped high school, was accepted to college at 13, and is now nearing graduation from UC Irvine, told KTLA his garage chemistry setup sparked the FBI search, which included a Weapons of Mass Destruction support team. Fritz says a maintenance worker who responded to a leak unconnected to his experiments saw the garage setup and notified the landlord, who called authorities, KABC reports.
Federal officials said they were checking out suspicious chemicals; Fritz and his attorney insist the substances were common lab items bought from Amazon, eBay, and hardware stores. "I don't think anybody expects to have the federal authorities knock on their door," he said. Fritz, who posts his experiments on YouTube under a chemistry-themed handle, said rubbing alcohol and other everyday chemicals were mistaken for something far more sinister. The teen, who has not been charged with any crime, and his family had to spend nearly a week in a hotel while the investigation was underway.
Fritz tells the Orange County Register that while his equipment was standard classroom material, the experiment, which involved molecular structures commonly used in pharmaceuticals, was very complicated.
- "What my interest truly was in is in creating these molecules called Cubanes, which have a three-dimensional structure, which can be manipulated in a way to allow these molecules to bind directly and in an efficient and better way than people have bound these compounds ever before," Fritz tells NBC Los Angeles. "And this has such a profound impact across many fields such as cancer biology, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. And this has been a truly a personal battle for me because I lost my aunt to cancer in 2020."
Calling the episode a "big misunderstanding," Fritz says he won't abandon his research, "Helping people is something that I've been passionate about for the longest time," Fritz says, adding that he plans to head to medical school after finishing his degree at UC Irvine. He says that after he made the news, a Google employee reached out to encourage him to continue his research, saying they experienced a similar situation when they were young. "I really want to make it clear to the students, parents, and teachers of America that this is not something that should dissuade them from being curious and passionate about science," Fritz says. "As long as we stay motivated in science, there's an experimenter within all of us."
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