Published on January 27th, 2014 | by Jill
Awesome Kid: Jack Andraka
Fifteen year old Jack Andraka invented a test for cancer.
When he started, Jack Andraka didn’t know what a pancreas was. When he was finished, the 15 year old had invented a revolutionary test for pancreatic cancer.
After the death of a family friend, Jack wanted to know more about pancreatic cancer and why someone could die from it so quickly. What he learned was that if the disease is diagnosed early, the survival rate is high. But the test most commonly used is 60 years old and very expensive. So Jack set out to develop his own test for pancreatic cancer.
He succeeded. His test is faster, cheaper and more accurate than that one doctors normally use. And he did it by doing his research on Google and Wikipedia.
Not only does Jack Andraka’s technique work for pancreatic cancer, it can also be used to detect for ovarian and lung cancers.
Jack’s success has been written about in many magazines including the Smithsonian, Popular Science, Mashable and the Washington Post. You can find more about Jack Andraka on his website. Also watch this TedTalk to hear him discribe how he went about inventing the test.
Follow @jackandraka on Twitter and like his Facebook fan page.
About the Author
Jill is the creator of Ruby Skye P.I. She loves a good mystery... as long as it's not the case of the missing iPhone. She lives in Toronto.
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