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Teen Googles his way to new cancer testing method
CBC News ^ | August 24, 2012 | Lauren O'Neil

Posted on 08/25/2012 6:17:52 PM PDT by JerseyanExile

Fifteen-year-old Jack Andraka took home top science fair honours this year for the development of a cancer-testing method found to be 168 times faster, 26,000 times cheaper and 400 times more sensitive than the current gold-medal standard.

His work was impressive enough to earn the Maryland high school student a total of $100,500 in grants and prizes at the 2012 Intel Science Fair.

Even more impressive is the source he credits for much of his success: Google.

"I definitely could not have done this research and project without the use of the internet", Andraka told BBC News in an interview published this week.

"I basically went to Google and was looking up cancer statistics, also looking at a bunch of different documents on like, single walled carbon nanotubes and pancreatic cancer biology," he told the BBC.

Andraka was able to find enough information using search engines and free online science papers to invent his procedure, which is now being hailed as "revolutionary" by the American Cancer Society and science publications around the world.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: cancer; cancerresearch; cancertest
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1 posted on 08/25/2012 6:18:02 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
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To: JerseyanExile
I expect to see more of this as time goes on.

/johnny

2 posted on 08/25/2012 6:20:38 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: JerseyanExile

Great story and possibly great news on the cancer front.


3 posted on 08/25/2012 6:21:56 PM PDT by commonguymd (New media has not replaced the MSM. It has emboldened it. Never underestimate the power they have.)
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To: JerseyanExile

Crowd sourcing is supposed to lead to a lot of various kinds of breakthroughs.


4 posted on 08/25/2012 6:22:08 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: Jonty30

Wonderful! But I hate Google’s tracking of my every move! I use IXQuick for a search engine. They search google and several other search engines,, but no IP tracking, no cookies, etc..


5 posted on 08/25/2012 6:27:35 PM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
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To: JerseyanExile

This could really hurt Big Pharma. Thus I suspect they will buy him off and we’ll never see this again.


6 posted on 08/25/2012 6:30:15 PM PDT by upchuck ("Definition of 'racist:' someone that is winning an argument with a liberal." ~ Peter Brimelow)
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To: upchuck

Yes, Big Pharma (or Big Medical Machinery) will buy (or, more likely, license) that patent for a significant amount of money, and then proceed to make that money back many times over as part of an evil conspiracy to bring that cancer-testing product to market & save countless thousands of lives.


7 posted on 08/25/2012 6:38:11 PM PDT by BCrago66
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To: All


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8 posted on 08/25/2012 6:45:01 PM PDT by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
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To: BCrago66

Except for it’s 26,000 times cheaper than current methods, so that means it is bad news for Big Pharma. There is a trending movement in med schools and residency programs right now called Just Say No To Drug Reps.


9 posted on 08/25/2012 6:47:23 PM PDT by goodwithagun (My gun has killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.)
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To: JerseyanExile
There are a couple of exiting developments in search technologies.

Watson turns medic: Supercomputer to diagnose disease

IBM hasn't described Watson in too much detail as far as I know, but it is a big database/search engine/AI program that reads text and can infer connections.

Northwestern Scientists Create 'Chemical Brain'

10 posted on 08/25/2012 6:50:07 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: goodwithagun
Except for it’s 26,000 times cheaper than current methods, so that means it is bad news for Big Pharma. There is a trending movement in med schools and residency programs right now called Just Say No To Drug Reps.

Something that is saving lives, and will end up saving countless lives, is new medical smartphone apps. These are especially being used well in developing countries where they don't have much infrastructure.

11 posted on 08/25/2012 6:53:42 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: JerseyanExile; Abundy; Albion Wilde; AlwaysFree; AnnaSASsyFR; bayliving; BFM; ...

I hope he hires a bodyguard. I suspect he’s made some Very Important People very angry. Big Pharma, anyone?

Maryland “Freak State” PING!


12 posted on 08/25/2012 7:01:26 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Obama should change his campaign slogan to "Yes, we am!" Sounds as stupid as his administration is.)
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To: JerseyanExile

I could have sworn I read the exact same story about a year ago, involving a young girl.


13 posted on 08/25/2012 7:37:46 PM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Bookmark


14 posted on 08/25/2012 7:42:06 PM PDT by publius911 (Formerly Publius 6961, formerly jennsdad)
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To: JerseyanExile

I am sure he is on The One’s $h!tlist !


15 posted on 08/25/2012 8:23:31 PM PDT by CORedneck
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To: JerseyanExile
This is very interesting:
Pathology professor Dr. Anirban Maitra was the only doctor out of 200 that Andraka had contacted to give the eager young student lab access at Johns Hopkins to conduct his science fair project.
199 other doctors (I assume research types) unwilling to give a young thinking person the time of day.
16 posted on 08/25/2012 8:42:08 PM PDT by visualops (artlife.us)
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To: BCrago66
then proceed to make that money back many times over as part of an evil conspiracy to bring that cancer-testing product to market & save countless thousands of lives.

How insidious!
17 posted on 08/25/2012 9:39:56 PM PDT by andyk (Go Juan Pablo!)
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To: JerseyanExile

Not surprsng, really.
The Internet is essentially the repository of the sum total of all human knowledge.
It just takes time to wade through it all.......


18 posted on 08/25/2012 9:40:14 PM PDT by Red Badger (Anyone who thinks wisdom comes with age is either too young or too stupid to know the difference....)
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To: Pride in the USA; Stillwaters

Amazing!


19 posted on 08/25/2012 9:53:15 PM PDT by lonevoice (Today I broke my personal record for most consecutive days lived)
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To: JerseyanExile

My mom died 3 months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, because of the daily fear I have of also succumbing from it, I sure hope this kid’s testing is approved. Or, any kind of preemptive testing, trials, breakthroughs. I thought after Patrick Swayze died from it, it would become the cancer du jour with tons of money coming in, but, alas, it wasn’t.


20 posted on 08/25/2012 10:53:28 PM PDT by peggybac
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