Translator: Denise RQ Reviewer: Linda Anderson
I suppose my story began
before I was in high school, back when I was 13.
When I was 13, I came home one day to some really bad news.
A close family friend, who was like an uncle to me,
had actually passed from pancreatic cancer.
And when the disease hit so close to home, I knew I needed to learn more.
So, I went online to find answers.
Using my best friends for information, Google and Wikipedia,
I found a variety of statistics on pancreatic cancer.
But what I had found really shocked me.
You see, 85% of all pancreatic cancers are diagnosed late,
when someone has less than a 2% chance of survival.
As I dug deeper, I'm like, why are we so bad at detecting pancreatic cancers?
And that's when I stumbled across an even more shocking statistic.
The current test for pancreatic cancer is a 60-year-old technique.
I mean, first off, that's older than my dad,
and, most likely, my computer science teacher.
But also, the thing is,
it costs 800 dollars per test.
And then also it misses 30% of all pancreatic cancers.
So your doctor would have to be ridiculously suspicious
that you have the cancer in order to to give you this test.
But oftentimes, these cancers, they don't show any symptoms,
so it's too far along before you can detect it.
And I was sitting there, I'm like,
well, this test is so crappy
that anything I do will probably be at least marginally better.
So, I set out armed with 8th grade biology to change the face of cancer diagnostics.
A bit lofty of a goal, but I was going to do it.
(Laughter)
Then I found what a sensor for pancreatic cancer
would have to look like, in order to be effective.
It would have to be inexpensive,
rapid, simple, sensitive,
selective, and minimally invasive.
I was sitting here, looking at these criteria,
and I'm like, okay, this is easy enough.
I could probably sort this out.
I wasn't exactly sure how.
Then I found why we haven't updated our sensor in over six decades.
That's because when we're looking at these cancers,
we're looking at your bloodstream,
particularly for these variations in protein levels.
While this sounds very straightforward, it is anything but.
You see, you have liters and liters of blood,
which is already abundant in an innumerable amount of proteins.
You're looking for this one change in this one tiny amount of one protein.
So, it's like trying to find a needle in a sack of nearly identical needles.
However, undeterred due to my teenage optimism,
or how some people label it, complete and utter ignorance
of the entire field of pancreatic cancer research,
(Laughter)
I went and found a database of over 8000 proteins
that are found in your bloodstream when you have these cancers.
It was my summer break.
I was pretty antisocial at the time, I sat down and locked myself in my room,
and bashed out all 8,000 proteins, researching each and every one.
At the end of the summer,
I was really doubting my potential for any future of social interaction.
(Laughter)
It did make for some very interesting back-to-school essays.
My teacher was like, to my friend, "What did you do?"
He was like, "I went to Yellowstone."
And then to me, they're like, "So, what did you do?"
and I was like, "Oh, I researched proteins."
After that, there was this very awkward pause,
and I never shook the nickname, "Protein Kid" after that.
However, on the 4000th try, when I was close to losing my sanity,
I finally found one protein that could work.
The name of this protein was mesothelin.
And it's just your ordinary, run of the mill type protein.
Unless, of course, you have pancreatic, ovarian, or lung cancer,
in which case, it's found in very high levels in your bloodstream.
The key is, it's found in the very earliest stages of the disease,
when someone has close to 100% chance of survival.
So, if you can detect this protein,
you can potentially detect the cancer in the earliest stage,
when someone has close to 100% chance of survival.
However, now the big question was,
how on Earth am I going to be able to detect this protein?
I mean, here I am, Joe Schmoe, 14-years-old, what am I going to do?
I had this epiphany moment, and it came in a very unlikely place.
High school biology class, absolute stifler of innovation.
(Laughter)
Particularly with my biology teacher, we just did not get along.
So, one day, the conflict and tensions had risen to all-time highs,
and I rebelled how any teenager would.
I snuck in an article on single-walled carbon nanotubes.
A carbon nanotube, these are pretty much the coolest things ever.
You see, they're these long, thin tubes of carbon that's an atom thick,
and they're one 50,000th the diameter of a single strand of your hair.
So, they're extremely small, but they have these amazing properties,
kind of like the superheros of material science.
So, I was sitting here, kind of feeling really James Bond-esque,
I snuck it between the pages of my biology textbook,
and was covertly sneaking glances at it,
while I was supposed to be paying attention to this lecture.
My biology teacher was droning us to sleep about these things called antibodies.
Antibodies are actually these very cool class of molecules.
They will only react to one specific protein.
Kind of like a lock and key.
And in this case, that protein was that cancer biomarker.
And I was sitting there, reading my article,
when all of a sudden it hit me.
You could combine these two concepts.
You see, if you take these antibodies and weave them
into this network of nanotubes, then you'd have a network
that would only react to one specific protein.
Also, due to the amazing properties of these carbon nanotubes,
it would actually change how electricity flows through it,
based on the amount of protein present.
Thus, you could detect pancreatic cancer,
using just a 50 dollar ohmmeter that you snagged from your dad's garage.
Actually, he didn't know I'd stolen it until several months after,
and he was like, "Huh, that's where it went."
I was never allowed in the garage again.
However, I was sitting there, and I was like,
wait, these networks of nanotubes are really flimsy.
It kind of looks like a bunch of soot,
when you have a bag of carbon nanotubes.
Since they're so delicate, they need to be supported.
So, I was thinking, what's cheap,
what could support these, and what can I get,
because I'm only a high school student at this point.
I can't get these super rare materials.
All of a sudden, it hit me: I could use paper.
Making a paper sensor for pancreatic cancer
is about as simple as making chocolate chip cookies,
which I personally love.
If I ever do bad on a test, then you'd better watch out
for the chocolate chip cookies, or ice cream, depending on how bad I did.
All you do, is you take some water,
you pour in the nanotubes, add the antibodies, mix it up,
take some paper, dip it, dry it, and then you can detect cancer.
Just as soon as I had this realization, I look up, and I see my biology teacher
storming up to me, all red in the face.
I swear to you, she has eyes in the back of her head.
Somehow she had found out or sensed that I had this paper,
and snatched it out of my hands,
and was like, "What is this actual science doing in my classroom?"
(Laughter)
At least that what I thought she said.
She probably said something more along the lines
of, "Do your classwork, or else I'll fail you."
However, after class, I was finally able to get the article back,
after listening to this giant talk
about how I have to respect myself and others and all this other crap.
I was like, "Just give me my article back."
I finally got it and was able to do more research on it.
I was like, I'm probably going to need a lab to do this research.
You can't exactly do cancer research on your kitchen counter top.
Me and my brother had done some pretty crazy stuff, I must admit.
We, for example, made these giant, electrical towers in our basement
that knocked out the entire power for our development,
as well as giving ourselves some pretty bad electric shocks.
My brother has several burns all over his body from that.
Also, I cultured E. coli and cholera where we make our sandwiches every day,
(Laughter)
Luckily, the CDC did not have to be called in for that.
We have landed ourselves on the FBI watch list for some of our other activities,
especially our online purchasing activity,
and that landed my Mom on the FBI watch list since we used her credit card.
(Laughter)
She wasn't too pleased when the FBI showed up to search our house.
However, I'm probably going to need a lab.
Cancer research isn't exactly in the family budget.
So, okay, what's a nearby university?
Ah, Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health.
So I typed up this giant manifesto, thirty pages long,
that outlined every aspect of my procedure and sent it out to 200 professors
at Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health.
I was like, just let me work in your lab.
Then, I sat back, waiting for all these positive emails to pour in.
They'd all be like, "Hey, this wonder boy saves the world"
on the cover of Time magazine.
However, then reality struck,
and I got 199 rejections.
I realized some professors aren't nearly as nice
as those glowing profile pictures make them seem.
Some can actually be very mean.
Instead of doing normal hobbies like crochet or playing golf,
they insult 16-year-olds' scientific procedures,
very meanly, going through each and every line,
saying why it's the worst possible mistake I could make.
However, undeterred, I kept going.
After this deluge of massive negativity towards my project,
I was like, well crap, maybe it doesn't work.
I got told no by my parents, I was like,
"Whatever, they don't know anything."
And then I got told no by my biology teacher,
but I hated her, so I didn't care.
But then 199 professors told me no,
and, I'm like, "Uh, maybe this isn't as cool as I thought it was."
However, then finally one positive email
from Dr. Anirban Maitra, at Johns Hopkins University
came in and he was like, "Alright, kid, maybe you can come in for an interview."
So, this of course to me meant, "Yes," like a glowing review of my work.
(Laughter)
I go in for this big interview,
clad in my normal attire of sweat pants and a hoodie.
Pretty professional.
I expected normal interview questions, like, "What is your favorite color?"
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
No, this guy unfortunately knew his stuff.
I couldn't bamboozle him like my parents.
With my parents, I could just be like, "Oh, carbon nanotubes, cancer, chemistry,"
and they'd be like, "Okay, that sounds cool."
(Laughter)
With this guy, he literally took 30 PhD students and stuffed them
into this three meter by three meter room with me,
and they tried to sink my entire scientific procedure.
I stumbled out of this interview, which was really an interrogation,
but I luckily had landed the lab space I needed.
I didn't know the answers to many of their questions;
however, I guessed "C" like I did on my SATs.
I figured, well, my SATs worked out pretty well, this will probably work.
However, I got through, I got the lab space I needed.
Just as soon as I start, I realized how little I knew.
I had no clue what I was doing in that lab.
On the first day, it was like, "Jack, culture some cancer cells for us."
All you literally do, to do this, is take a vial,
transfer the cell liquid from that into another vial.
I ended up sneezing into the second vial.
(Laughter)
I was like, cancer cells, they're pretty hard to kill.
They have an immune system or something.
No, the next day, there are tentacles growing out of that flask.
I just hid it away and denied the existence of it.
Over the course of the next seven months,
I screwed up every imaginable scientific procedure.
I'd trip and break my cell culture, burn them in the incubator,
I even blew them up in the centrifuge, which was a great, really awesome
fountain of cell media, growing across the lab.
I thought it was totally worth it.
My lab mentor at this point was like,
"Why on Earth did I ever accept this kid into my lab?"
After many nights of sleeping over at the lab
and screwing up all these procedures,
I finally ended up with one small paper sensor
that cost three cents, and takes five minutes to run.
This makes it 168 times faster,
over 26,000 times less expensive,
and over 400 times more sensitive
than our conventional methods of cancer detection.
But also, the coolest thing
is it can detect the cancer in the earliest stage,
when someone has close to 100% chance of survival.
So far, it has over 90% accuracy at detecting the cancer.
So, in the next 2 to 5 years, this patent-pending sensor
could potentially lift the pancreatic cancer survival rates
from 5.5% to close to 100%,
and will do similar for ovarian and lung cancer.
But, it wouldn't stop there.
You see, you can simply switch out that antibody
and detect an entirely different protein,
meaning, an entirely different disease, from Alzheimers, other forms of cancer,
even HIV/AIDS and heart disease.
The possibilities are literally endless.
However, on this journey, I faced a lot of adversity.
I got told no by my mom, my dad,
my biology teacher, and 199 professors.
Fortunately, they didn't tell me
to make a paper mache volcano for my science fair project.
However, the greatest difficulty that I faced on this entire journey
was not being discounted by people.
It was rather being discounted by the scientific community as a whole.
You see, there are these things called scientific paywalls.
This means, when you want to access information,
you have to cough up 35 dollars per article.
For young kids like me, this means that we can't do research at all,
because we simply don't have access to the information.
We're kind of discounted by all of the researchers out there,
as little kids who couldn't possibly do actual science.
By having these 35 dollar- research barriers,
we've essentially created this very general disconnect
between the general public, and youth, and science.
Where we see all these big STEM initiatives
that say we need more kids interested in science,
STEM is a good thing.
But when a Katy Perry single costs 99 cents
and a seminal science article costs 35 dollars,
that's a bit of a mixed message.
This isn't just a problem for 15-year-old cancer researchers.
This is a problem for everyone.
You see, recently Harvard University
released a statement to its faculty and students,
proclaiming that, "Major periodical subscriptions,
especially to electronic journals published by historically key providers,
cannot be sustained;
continuing these subscriptions on their current footing
is financially untenable."
Now, what does it say about the world of academic publishing,
flow of information, and accessibility of knowledge,
when Harvard University, the richest academic institution in the world,
cannot afford to continue paying for its subscriptions.
By instituting these pay walls,
we've created this very rigid class hierarchy in terms of knowledge.
At the top we have these elite institutions and corporate laboratories
that can afford these multi-thousand dollar subscriptions,
sometimes up to 40,000 dollars per year per subscription.
And even here in this knowledge elite, we have this segregation
where at the top we have the knowledge billionaires,
those big institutions like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford,
that can afford these giant publications, and pretty much any publication.
But then lower down we have state-run institutions
that don't have as large of endowments
and can't afford every single subscription.
So, what we have here, is we're segregating
people's access to knowledge, based on how much money they have.
This tier-based method of dissemination of knowledge isn't very effective.
It's like saying, to the top ten institutions out there,
"You all can teach calculus and above,
but everyone else is relegated to only algebra."
Under these knowledge elite, we have people like us,
the knowledge middle-class.
We can access the few open access articles
that are freely available to the public,
as well as maybe shell out a few dollars here and there.
But then, we have the knowledge underclass.
And this is 85% of the world population,
5.5 billion people who lack access to the Internet
and live in knowledge poverty.
So essentially, what we're living in, is a knowledge aristocracy.
We're only 0.008% of the world population.
That's it, that's like taking 80 people off the streets of London,
and saying: "You guys are the only people who can access scientific information.
Everyone else, too bad for you."
Well, 85% of the worlds population is living in knowledge poverty.
Imagine if we could live in a knowledge democracy,
where what you look like, age or gender doesn't apply.
Whether you're from Cambodia to China, from Malaysia to Mexico,
whether you're a billionaire or living on less than a dollar a day,
you'd have the exact same access to information.
Because knowledge should not be a commodity,
and science shouldn't be a luxury.
Knowledge should be a basic human right, because the minds of people must be free.
And that means the minds of everyone,
not the minds of a select few who can afford these articles.
Because a girl in Pakistan
should have just the exact same access to these scientific articles
as a preeminent Nobel Laureate at Harvard.
Not because it's economically sound,
but rather because it's ethically correct.
And that's what we call equality.
And I think we can institute this change,
because think, if a 15-year-old who didn't quite know what a pancreas was,
could find a new way to detect pancreatic cancer,
just imagine what we all can do together.
Thank you.
(Applause)