A 16-year-old Hobart student who investigated the use of a chemical from the skin of tree frogs as a possible treatment for Alzheimer's disease has won a national science award for her after-school efforts.

Hannah Sutton looked at a possible treatment for Alzheimer's using a peptide, Caerin 1.9, found in the skin glands of the Australian tree frog.

Her research has won her the investigation category of the BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards for school students.

Every Tuesday afternoon for a year, Ms Sutton left school and went to the Menzies Research Institute in Hobart to conduct her experiments.

"I had a pretty amazing teacher at school and I wanted to undertake a gold CREST Award which is something run by the CSIRO and to do that it's mandatory that you have a mentor because of the level of the project," she said.

"So [the teacher] organised some mentors and she emailed heaps of places and Menzies were amazing and said that 'yup, we'd love to have you'.

"And so basically I took some time off from school and went down there every week and they helped me conduct the research there."

Ms Sutton said she had the idea to look at green tree frogs as a possible source for an Alzheimer's cure when she researched a substance they produce.

"The peptide that we use does come from the skin glands of Australian tree frogs and basically it's been used in antibiotic research for about 10 to 15 years," she said.

"It's been shown to be able to inhibit HIV and things like that.

"I worked with the mentors at Menzies and we thought, well if it has the potential to have that much of an impact on HIV then maybe it could have an impact in areas of neuroscience too."

Ms Sutton said the chemical was found to help the body fight the substance which may cause Alzheimer's disease.

"There's this protein called amyloid beta which is believed to be one of ... the causes of Alzheimer's," she said.

"So what [Caerin] 1.9 can do is, we've shown that it can increase the rate at which those micro-global cells take after pathogens like amyloid beta.

"Basically it can help to clear those pathogens from the brain."

Early days for Alzheimer's frog gland treatment

The experiment has been successfully tested on rat cells but it has not yet been tested on humans.

Ms Sutton said the research was still in its early stages.

"It does definitely have a lot of potential but there are ... a few problems just because it's really preliminary research," she said.

"Our biggest problem in looking at developing it as a treatment is the fact that there's a barrier between the brain and the blood and it will only let certain chemicals in.

"[The chemical we are working with] is about five times bigger than what is allowed through that barrier.

"So [we are] looking at methods and there are methods as to how we can get around that and, the other big thing is how it would interact with someone and their different genetics and what other drugs they're taking and things like that.

"So there are kind of a few obstacles on the way to making it a proper therapeutic treatment."

The award winners were announced on Tuesday after a five-day camp in Melbourne where all the contenders participated in science activities and discussed their work.

Ms Sutton said her win was unexpected.

"I was incredibly overwhelmed, I was really excited and the really great thing was the lots of amazing friends I made on the camp," she said.

"My Mum was at the awards and they were all really excited I think."

Ms Sutton envisages a career in science.

"Science is definitely something I'd love to consider doing after I finish school," she said.

"I'd like to take some time off and do a bit of travelling but I'm looking at going into medicine."