US teen develops advanced cancer test using info found on Google

With little else than search engine Google, a 15-year-old boy in the United States has come up with an advanced test for pancreatic cancer. Jack Andraka has applied for a patent for his test for pancreatic cancer, which is 168 times faster and considerably cheaper than the gold standard in the field. His secret? Search engines like Google and free online science papers, the British Broadcasting Co. (BBC) reported. What's more, he said the idea of the test came to him when he was "chilling out in biology class." For now, BBC said Andraka now dabbles in research in one of the world's most prominent labs - if he isn't busy watching television or kayaking. He is also doing further research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, after winning $75,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair last May. Last May, Andraka won the Intel Science Fair's top prize for using a dip-sensor to test blood or urine for early-stage pancreatic cancer. A separate article on The Baltimore Sun said Dr. Anirban Maitra, a professor in the Johns Hopkins University's department of pathology, gave Jack use of his lab to work on his invention. "Keep that last name in mind. You're going to read about him a lot in the years to come," said Maitra (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-05-24/news/bs-ar-student-intel-winner-20120523_1_top-prize-grand-prize-intel-science-fair). "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," he added. Interest in science Jack said he first became interested in science at age 3, when he tested the properties of water by dropping objects in river currents. He began his project last year and said he emailed about 200 Johns Hopkins professors, University of Maryland professors and officials at the National Institutes of Health before Maitra became interested. "I came up with the idea, and it took me a really long time to envision it, and then it took about five months to complete the entire process," said Jack. He added he was inspired to create the project after a family member and an acquaintance died of pancreatic cancer. Ovarian and lung cancer In The Baltimore Sun article, Jack said his method also can be used to detect ovarian and lung cancer. "It can also look at drug resistance for cancer therapeutic drugs and it can look at how effective a chemotherapeutic drug is," he said. The article quoted Intel officials as saying Jack's method tests the level of mesothelin, a pancreatic cancer biomarker, in blood or urine. His study resulted in more than 90 percent accuracy in detecting the presence of mesothelin. The dipstick-sensor method costs 3 cents and takes five minutes, even as Intel officials said the method was dozens of times faster and less expensive, as well as more than 100 times more sensitive, than current tests. — BG, GMA News