An app that allows kids to learn to draw, a safe social media site for kids, a battery that can be charged in 20 seconds, and a device that turns the CO2 emissions from cars into breathable oxygen. What do all of these innovations have in common? They were all developed by youth! Health sciences is a competitive but also increasingly popular field to enter into, promising a future of increased research and development by the youth of this generation. In fact, the biomedical innovations of young people have already positively impacted the lives of many. Not convinced? Check out the following health sciences related inventions by youth below.
1. Pancreatic Can
cer Detector by 15-year-old Jack Andraka
Pancreatic cancer is the 7th most common form of cancer worldwide, and is more often than not fatal. The cancer is invasive, has a 5-year survival rate of 6%, and often goes undiagnosed until it is too late. At the age of 15, Maryland native Jack Andraka convinced a leading cancer researcher at John Hopkins University to grant him access to the University’s lab materials so he could perform more fulfilling research projects than with just the materials in his basement lab. With the guidance and materials offered by the university and researcher, Andraka was able to develop a device that would allow for the easy and early detection of pancreatic cancer by flagging an abundance of the protein mesothelin, the body’s warning sign for the cancer. Though the dipstick still needs to undergo extended testing, the future looks bright for Andraka, whose device could be applied to test for other forms of cancers. With a simple research opportunity that was granted to him, which is exactly the type of opportunity that Helix would like to provide for high school youth, Andraka won the prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering fair in 2013.
2. Wireless Sensor for Dementia Patients by 15-year-old Kenneth Shinozuka
After witnessing the crippling effects of dementia on his own grandfather, who would often get up in the middle of the night to wander and eventually hurt himself accidentally, Kenneth Shinozuka set out to invent a device that would insert a small detector on the ankle of the patient. When the patient stands up, the pressure exerted on the detector would send an alert to the caretaker’s smartphone, allowing for immediate attention for the patient. This simple yet life-changing invention earned Sinozuka of New York the Scientific American Science in Action Award.
3. Elana Simon’s Groundbreaking Research on Liver Cancer
After suffering from severe stomach pains for years before being diagnosed with fibro
lamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, a rare liver cancer at age 12, New York teen Elana Simon decided to do something to change the amount of science available behind the illness whose only cure is surgery. While looking for summer internship opportunities, Elana began her research on the cancer with her surgeon. They began collecting tumours from other patients who had the same rare cancer (there are only 300 reported cases annually worldwide) and sequencing the DNA of all the cells and eventually came to the realization that all the samples contained a certain chimera. Though more research is needed to find the link between the chimeric mutation and the cause of the cancer, Elana’s research marked a step into uncharted territory in the medical world and in 2015, she was invited to speak at the White House with President Obama, who recognized the significance of her work.
4. Serena Fasano’s Connection Between Yogurt and E-Coli
Serena Fasano’s curiosity for science began with a weird start: she was eating yogurt when she was 13 when she read the ingredients list and saw the names of bacteria that she didn’t know anything about. This prompted her to conduct additional research on the microorganisms, and for her school’s science fair, she performed an experiment that mixed E.coli into yogurt, with the result being that samples with more yogurt contained less of the bacteria that causes over 37,000 deaths a year. Throughout her high school years, Serena conducted research on yogurt with a doctor from the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine, eventually isolating 5 different components of the bacteria lactobacillus, one of which was an undiscovered protein that seemed to be incredibly harmful to E.coli. She has since received a patent for the protein and currently has a successful career in the health science field.
5. Angela Zhang’s Dream of a World Without Cancer — And how she can achieve it
Having first started reading scientific journals in her first year of high school, Angela Zhang became interested in bio-engineering and requested access to a lab at Stanford to conduct her investigations. With the help of this experience, by her last year of high school she came up with a hypothesis to cure cancer: mix cancer medicine with a polymer that would bind to tumours and allow doctors to see the location of cancerous tumours on an MRI. They would then shine ultraviolet lights on the tumours and melt the polymer, releasing the medicine and killing cancerous cells while keeping healthy cells alive. When tested on mice, this hypothesis proved to be accurate, though testing on humans has yet to happen. This breakthrough in one of medical science’s biggest mysteries would not have been possible without the help of professors at Stanford who allowed Zhang to conduct preliminary research. In 2012, at the age of 17, she was invited to the White House for the annual science fair, where she presented her findings to President Obama.