I am a high school student in grade 11. I want to be those people who achieves a lot at a young age. I want to attend the International science fairs and do a lot of research related activities. I want to implement health with carbon nano-tubes or enzymes. Could any of you professionals know how I could begin my research. Do I just learn about this subject? What would be a great way to start my research if I want to go beyond just an average level science fair project. It is possible, I have seen many at international and national science fairs do it. My problem is, I don't know how they managed to come up with an idea and how they began
Longer answer now, but I'll try to be as brief as I can.
I'll begin with the specific points, because they're the easiest to address. If you want to work with developing nano-technology or similar topics, you're probably more interested in biomedical engineering than in medicine. If your interest is specifically nano technology, mechanical engineering or applied physics may make more sense than medicine. If you want to develop drugs, consider pursuing pharmacology.
The beginning of any research project is developing a question. Usually, you have to be at least somewhat informed on a topic to begin formulating a question. Otherwise, you have no real base to decide what is/is not reasonable to ask. Frankly, this is a monumental task for someone 5-6 years further in their education than you are.
Before I continue further, I should stress that I think the following is a bad idea. You're in high-school. Find someone to date, hang out with your friends, and enjoy life. There's a lot more to it than what other people think of you. Enjoy the time you have available, you will probably never have so little responsibility again in your life.
If you absolutely must waste the last time that it's acceptable to goof off, then consider contacting a professor at a local university. Figure out what you're interested in, and try to find a professor who is researching a similar topic. Do your due diligence, be respectful, and contact them (probably by email). If they don't respond, don't take it personally. It's difficult to find resources for graduate students, even more difficult for college students, and even more so for high school students.
If you spent a few years in a lab, learning what you can, you might be trusted enough to run a project. Understand that your initial time in the lab will probably be filled with mundane tasks (running simple, inexpensive tasks or cleaning things). Once people know they can trust you not to break things (or be stupid), they'll trust you with actual experiments. Then they may trust you with a (very) small project. I knew a few people in college in this position. Understand that even then, it won't be "your" idea getting tested. It will be someone else's. That's just how funding works.
If you want to test a hypothesis of your own, you'll have to find the funding, or make a project that costs very little. However, that tends to end up being the very "science fair" type projects you find distasteful (which I don't understand, those projects are awesome).
Chasing after accolades is one of the surest paths to misery. The trouble is, even if you accomplish something important, it may take many years for people to recognize it. When they do recognize it, they might not even credit the correct person.
Outside of practical concerns (eating, having shelter, etc.), the best reason to pursue a scientifically driven career is that you find joy in it. This is ultimately true of any career.
If you want to learn more about biology, campbell-reese's biology book is fairly good for cellular processes. If you make it through that, you could try out guyton and hall for physiology and michael ross's histology: a text and atlas could teach you more about tissues. Lippincot and williams will take you far in biochemistry.
If you can't make yourself enjoy the science, I probably wouldn't pursue it further at the moment. Explore it when you get to college: take a few courses, and see what you enjoy. College professors will be much more open to you doing research in college than as a high school student.
Whatever you end up majoring in, understand that you are making a huge investment, and plan accordingly. If you expect to have a career handed to you, you'll get your as* back on a silver platter instead.
As a final note: don't be discouraged if you don't become one of "those people who achieves a lot at a young age" Those people have completely different circumstances than you do, and for the most part, they're probably already started by 16. For perspective, a scientifically accomplished 35 y.old is a VERY young scientist. There are occasionally a few "super-geniuses" that accomplish more as a young person, but they are exceedingly rare.
