Posted on 05/28/2012 6:20:23 PM PDT by neverdem
15-year-old nabs $100,000 top prize in Intel-sponsored competition; his "dipstick" test is 90 percent accurate
Jack Andraka. Andraka.
"Keep that last name in mind. You're going to read about him a lot in the years to come. What I tell my lab is, 'Think of Thomas Edison and the light bulb.' This kid is the Edison of our times. There are going to be a lot of light bulbs coming from him."
Those are bold words, bolder still given that their source is one of the top medical researchers in the nation. But Dr. Anirban Maitra, a pathology professor at John Hopkins University firmly believes what he says.
I. HS Freshman Invents Test That's 100x as Sensitive
The invention is incredible. A "dipstick" style sensor, it is 90 percent accurate at testing for pancreatic cancer in blood samples. It's also being considered as a prime candidate for testing for other diseases.
When it comes to pancreatic cancer timing is crucial. Late detection or refusal to seek treatment can be deadly. Indeed, this same cancer took a great toll on tech luminary and Apple, Inc. (AAPL) founder Steven P. Jobs, first claiming his liver with its complications, and later his life.
Incredibly, Mr. Andraka, a mere boy at 15, claims to have come up with the underlying idea for his method at just 3 years old, when he found that by dropping objects into a flowing river, he could test the current. Encouraged by his parents -- a civil engineer (his father) and an anesthetist (his mother) -- and their small library of science magazines, the spark grew in the young man's mind.
That spark grew into the fire of a bold idea, after Mr. Andraka emailed 200 Johns Hopkins professors, University of Maryland professors, and officials at the National Institutes...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytech.com ...
Apparently Dr. Maitra doesn't know that Edison was a thief.
If only my parents were like that...
“Keep that last name in mind. You’re going to read about him a lot in the years to come. What I tell my lab is, ‘Think of Thomas Edison and the light bulb.’ This kid is the Edison of our times. There are going to be a lot of light bulbs coming from him.”
I bet the kid burns out by age 17.
My parents wouldn’t buy me a computer for my bedroom, nor let me hook it up to the internet.
This kid will be unemployed and on welfare, under 0bummerCare. Forget any advances in anything on Nov 7th, if the Racist/Marxist/Liar-in-Chief wins the GE. Nanny State, Cradle-To-Grave America... ***UTOPIA***, here we come!
If the kid can help a lot of sick people in the world and make some bucks doing it don’t knock him.
Do you say Edison was a thief because of the way he didn’t pay Tesla for his AC motor?
Edison was a great man but he definitely wronged Mr. Tesla. While Edison didn’t pay up he didn’t treat Tesla nearly as bad as Westinghouse did.
Mom had me reading newspapers at age 4, and I followed along with Dad on his DeVry electronics course. I could do the math on triode (remember tubes?) amplifier circuits by the time I was 7.
I was blessed.
I hope my grandchildren speak that way of me.
/johnny
Not knocking him.
/johnny
The last thing we need is another cancer test giving false positives.
Think about it.
A false positive just means you get scanned or whatever.
A false negative is far worse,,you go away all happy while the cancer grows.
Ideally a test has no false results but personally I will take a false positive any day.
You evidently are not aware of the millions of dollars of wasted health expenditures and millions of patients undergoing unnecessary suffering in the case of another cancer, prostate, because of false positives. Think about it.
Edison screwed over a lot of people besides Tesla.
I have cancer, not found until it was advanced, there is a simple test to pick it up in early stafes when it is highly treatable. It is not done because of the expense, women have to demand it. It isnt cost efficient.
But so far my treatment id at around 600 grand plus untold misery.
I had no symptoms, none. I would pay cash to have had it so dont go making cost decision assumptions about whether we need this test or not.
If I had KNOWN about this fifty buck test I would have had it and spared me an early dearh.
Paople who talk about cost efficiency dont get it.
And another thing I AM a physician and a Master in public health to boot so not only do I know but I know the creeps who will use the cost effective tool to make sure people die to make the gov health care CHEAP!
It will bite all of us in one way or the other if we start viewing life itself through that corrupt prism.
Sorry about your health problems.
What is the test that you are talking about?
Sorry to hear that. I really hope that things improve for you.
Good luck cajungirl, keep up the fight.
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