1
00:00:00,879 --> 00:00:04,825
Have you ever experienced
a moment in your life

2
00:00:04,849 --> 00:00:07,855
that was so painful and confusing,

3
00:00:08,276 --> 00:00:10,074
that all you wanted to do

4
00:00:10,098 --> 00:00:13,795
was learn as much as you could
to make sense of it all?

5
00:00:13,818 --> 00:00:18,441
When I was 13, a close family friend
who was like an uncle to me

6
00:00:18,465 --> 00:00:20,495
passed away from pancreatic cancer.

7
00:00:21,398 --> 00:00:23,742
When the disease hit so close to home,

8
00:00:23,766 --> 00:00:25,825
I knew I needed to learn more.

9
00:00:25,849 --> 00:00:27,879
So I went online to find answers.

10
00:00:28,716 --> 00:00:33,461
Using the Internet, I found a variety
of statistics on pancreatic cancer,

11
00:00:33,485 --> 00:00:35,465
and what I had found shocked me.

12
00:00:36,410 --> 00:00:41,387
Over 85 percent of all pancreatic cancers
are diagnosed late,

13
00:00:41,411 --> 00:00:44,461
when someone has less
than a two percent chance of survival.

14
00:00:45,772 --> 00:00:48,802
Why are we so bad at detecting
pancreatic cancer?

15
00:00:49,885 --> 00:00:51,653
The reason?

16
00:00:51,677 --> 00:00:55,498
Today's current "modern" medicine
is a 60-year-old technique.

17
00:00:55,522 --> 00:00:57,164
That's older than my dad.

18
00:00:57,516 --> 00:01:00,801
(Laughter)

19
00:01:01,563 --> 00:01:07,540
But also, it's extremely expensive,
costing 800 dollars per test,

20
00:01:07,564 --> 00:01:12,604
and it's grossly inaccurate, missing
30 percent of all pancreatic cancers.

21
00:01:13,519 --> 00:01:17,536
Your doctor would have to be ridiculously
suspicious that you have the cancer

22
00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:19,253
in order to give you this test.

23
00:01:19,958 --> 00:01:22,888
Learning this, I knew there
had to be a better way.

24
00:01:23,714 --> 00:01:25,835
So, I set up scientific criteria

25
00:01:25,859 --> 00:01:27,945
as to what a sensor
would have to look like

26
00:01:27,969 --> 00:01:30,839
in order to effectively
diagnose pancreatic cancer.

27
00:01:31,357 --> 00:01:32,929
The sensor would have to be:

28
00:01:32,953 --> 00:01:37,681
inexpensive, rapid, simple, sensitive,

29
00:01:37,819 --> 00:01:41,329
selective, and minimally invasive.

30
00:01:42,352 --> 00:01:47,114
Now, there's a reason why this test
hasn't been updated in over six decades.

31
00:01:47,396 --> 00:01:50,353
And that's because when
we're looking for pancreatic cancer,

32
00:01:50,377 --> 00:01:52,065
we're looking at your bloodstream,

33
00:01:52,089 --> 00:01:56,815
which is already abundant in all these
tons and tons of protein,

34
00:01:56,839 --> 00:02:00,614
and you're looking for this miniscule
difference in this tiny amount of protein.

35
00:02:00,638 --> 00:02:01,788
Just this one protein.

36
00:02:02,135 --> 00:02:03,617
That's next to impossible.

37
00:02:04,044 --> 00:02:07,775
However, undeterred
due to my teenage optimism --

38
00:02:07,799 --> 00:02:08,985
(Laughter)

39
00:02:09,008 --> 00:02:13,580
(Applause)

40
00:02:13,604 --> 00:02:18,835
I went online to a teenager's
two best friends, Google and Wikipedia.

41
00:02:18,859 --> 00:02:21,775
I got everything for my homework
from those two sources.

42
00:02:21,799 --> 00:02:22,949
(Laughter)

43
00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:25,629
And what I had found was an article

44
00:02:25,653 --> 00:02:29,500
that listed a database
of over 8,000 different proteins

45
00:02:29,524 --> 00:02:31,715
that are found when you have
pancreatic cancer.

46
00:02:31,967 --> 00:02:35,424
So, I decided to go
and make it my new mission

47
00:02:35,448 --> 00:02:37,181
to go through all these proteins,

48
00:02:37,205 --> 00:02:40,536
and see which ones could serve
as a bio-marker for pancreatic cancer.

49
00:02:41,087 --> 00:02:43,363
And to make it a bit simpler for myself,

50
00:02:43,387 --> 00:02:47,140
I decided to map out
scientific criteria, and here it is.

51
00:02:47,799 --> 00:02:51,745
Essentially, first, the protein would have
to be found in all pancreatic cancers,

52
00:02:51,769 --> 00:02:53,512
at high levels in the bloodstream,

53
00:02:53,536 --> 00:02:57,037
in the earliest stages,
but also only in cancer.

54
00:02:57,553 --> 00:03:00,912
And so I'm just plugging and chugging
through this gargantuan task,

55
00:03:00,936 --> 00:03:03,795
and finally, on the 4,000th try,

56
00:03:03,819 --> 00:03:05,735
when I'm close to losing my sanity,

57
00:03:05,759 --> 00:03:06,909
I find the protein.

58
00:03:07,408 --> 00:03:11,365
And the name of the protein
I'd located was called mesothelin,

59
00:03:11,389 --> 00:03:14,254
and it's just your ordinary,
run-of-the-mill type protein,

60
00:03:14,278 --> 00:03:17,542
unless, of course, you have
pancreatic, ovarian or lung cancer,

61
00:03:17,566 --> 00:03:20,901
in which case it's found at these
very high levels in your bloodstream.

62
00:03:20,925 --> 00:03:25,584
But also, the key is that it's found
in the earliest stages of the disease,

63
00:03:25,608 --> 00:03:28,368
when someone has close
to 100 percent chance of survival.

64
00:03:29,144 --> 00:03:32,465
So now that I'd found
a reliable protein I could detect,

65
00:03:32,489 --> 00:03:35,426
I then shifted my focus
to actually detecting that protein,

66
00:03:35,450 --> 00:03:36,784
and thus, pancreatic cancer.

67
00:03:38,103 --> 00:03:41,080
Now, my breakthrough
came in a very unlikely place,

68
00:03:41,104 --> 00:03:44,111
possibly the most unlikely
place for innovation --

69
00:03:44,135 --> 00:03:48,258
my high school biology class,
the absolute stifler of innovation.

70
00:03:48,282 --> 00:03:50,815
(Laughter)

71
00:03:50,839 --> 00:03:53,809
(Applause)

72
00:03:54,101 --> 00:03:57,789
And I had snuck in this article
on these things called carbon nanotubes,

73
00:03:57,813 --> 00:04:00,270
and that's just a long,
thin pipe of carbon

74
00:04:00,294 --> 00:04:04,068
that's an atom thick, and one
50,000th the diameter of your hair.

75
00:04:04,092 --> 00:04:06,528
And despite their extremely small sizes,

76
00:04:06,552 --> 00:04:08,499
they have these incredible properties.

77
00:04:08,523 --> 00:04:11,242
They're kind of like the superheroes
of material science.

78
00:04:11,266 --> 00:04:15,313
And while I was sneakily reading this
article under my desk in my biology class,

79
00:04:15,337 --> 00:04:19,099
we were supposed to be paying attention
to these other kind of cool molecules,

80
00:04:19,123 --> 00:04:20,279
called antibodies.

81
00:04:20,517 --> 00:04:22,805
And these are pretty cool
because they only react

82
00:04:22,829 --> 00:04:24,366
with one specific protein,

83
00:04:24,390 --> 00:04:27,136
but they're not nearly
as interesting as carbon nanotubes.

84
00:04:27,420 --> 00:04:32,825
And so then, I was sitting in class,
and suddenly it hit me:

85
00:04:32,849 --> 00:04:36,805
I could combine what I was
reading about, carbon nanotubes,

86
00:04:36,829 --> 00:04:39,845
with what I was supposed to be
thinking about, antibodies.

87
00:04:39,869 --> 00:04:42,530
Essentially, I could weave
a bunch of these antibodies

88
00:04:42,554 --> 00:04:44,765
into a network of carbon nanotubes,

89
00:04:44,789 --> 00:04:48,415
such that you have a network
that only reacts with one protein,

90
00:04:48,439 --> 00:04:51,795
but also, due to the properties
of these nanotubes,

91
00:04:51,819 --> 00:04:53,795
it will change its electrical properties,

92
00:04:53,819 --> 00:04:55,809
based on the amount of protein present.

93
00:04:56,252 --> 00:04:57,890
However, there's a catch.

94
00:04:58,364 --> 00:05:01,480
These networks of carbon
nanotubes are extremely flimsy.

95
00:05:02,037 --> 00:05:04,801
And since they're so delicate,
they need to be supported.

96
00:05:05,211 --> 00:05:06,878
So that's why I chose to use paper.

97
00:05:07,532 --> 00:05:10,499
Making a cancer sensor
out of paper is about as simple

98
00:05:10,523 --> 00:05:12,714
as making chocolate chip
cookies, which I love.

99
00:05:12,964 --> 00:05:15,296
(Laughs)

100
00:05:15,869 --> 00:05:18,845
You start with some water,
pour in some nanotubes,

101
00:05:18,869 --> 00:05:23,845
add antibodies, mix it up,
take some paper, dip it, dry it,

102
00:05:23,869 --> 00:05:25,533
and you can detect cancer.

103
00:05:27,267 --> 00:05:33,616
(Applause)

104
00:05:33,729 --> 00:05:36,835
Then, suddenly, a thought occurred

105
00:05:36,859 --> 00:05:40,759
that kind of put a blemish
on my amazing plan here.

106
00:05:41,278 --> 00:05:44,215
I can't really do cancer research
on my kitchen countertop.

107
00:05:44,239 --> 00:05:45,811
My mom wouldn't really like that.

108
00:05:46,516 --> 00:05:49,587
So instead, I decided to go for a lab.

109
00:05:49,611 --> 00:05:54,213
So I typed up a budget, a materials list,
a timeline, and a procedure,

110
00:05:54,237 --> 00:05:56,909
and I emailed it
to 200 different professors

111
00:05:56,933 --> 00:06:00,208
at Johns Hopkins University
and the National Institutes of Health --

112
00:06:00,232 --> 00:06:03,462
essentially, anyone that had anything
to do with pancreatic cancer.

113
00:06:03,486 --> 00:06:06,611
I sat back waiting for these
positive emails to be pouring in,

114
00:06:06,635 --> 00:06:09,432
saying, "You're a genius!
You're going to save us all!"

115
00:06:09,456 --> 00:06:10,727
And --

116
00:06:10,751 --> 00:06:13,517
(Laughter)

117
00:06:13,651 --> 00:06:17,631
Then reality took hold,
and over the course of a month,

118
00:06:17,655 --> 00:06:22,211
I got 199 rejections
out of those 200 emails.

119
00:06:22,235 --> 00:06:24,751
One professor even went
through my entire procedure,

120
00:06:24,775 --> 00:06:27,872
painstakingly -- I'm not really
sure where he got all this time --

121
00:06:27,896 --> 00:06:31,484
and he went through and said
why each and every step

122
00:06:31,508 --> 00:06:33,604
was like the worst mistake
I could ever make.

123
00:06:34,458 --> 00:06:38,710
Clearly, the professors did not have
as high of an opinion of my work as I did.

124
00:06:40,367 --> 00:06:42,324
However, there is a silver lining.

125
00:06:42,348 --> 00:06:45,315
One professor said, "Maybe I might
be able to help you, kid."

126
00:06:45,339 --> 00:06:46,720
So, I went in that direction.

127
00:06:47,678 --> 00:06:51,657
(Laughter)

128
00:06:51,762 --> 00:06:53,702
As you can never say no to a kid.

129
00:06:54,157 --> 00:06:56,745
And so then, three months later,

130
00:06:56,769 --> 00:06:59,640
I finally nailed down
a harsh deadline with this guy,

131
00:06:59,664 --> 00:07:03,234
and I get into his lab, I get
all excited, and then I sit down,

132
00:07:03,258 --> 00:07:05,138
I start opening my mouth and talking,

133
00:07:05,162 --> 00:07:07,610
and five seconds later,
he calls in another Ph.D.

134
00:07:07,634 --> 00:07:11,368
Ph.D.s just flock into this little room,

135
00:07:11,392 --> 00:07:13,536
and they're just firing
these questions at me,

136
00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:16,360
and by the end, I kind of felt
like I was in a clown car.

137
00:07:16,384 --> 00:07:18,576
There were 20 Ph.D.s,
plus me and the professor

138
00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:20,442
crammed into this tiny office space,

139
00:07:20,466 --> 00:07:23,443
with them firing these
rapid-fire questions at me,

140
00:07:23,467 --> 00:07:25,493
trying to sink my procedure.

141
00:07:25,651 --> 00:07:27,667
How unlikely is that? I mean, pshhh.

142
00:07:27,962 --> 00:07:31,739
(Laughter)

143
00:07:32,419 --> 00:07:35,356
However, subjecting myself
to that interrogation --

144
00:07:35,380 --> 00:07:38,327
I answered all their questions,
and I guessed on quite a few

145
00:07:38,351 --> 00:07:39,598
but I got them right --

146
00:07:39,622 --> 00:07:43,200
and I finally landed
the lab space I needed.

147
00:07:43,819 --> 00:07:47,615
But it was shortly afterwards that
I discovered my once brilliant procedure

148
00:07:47,639 --> 00:07:49,765
had something like a million holes in it,

149
00:07:49,789 --> 00:07:51,550
and over the course of seven months,

150
00:07:51,574 --> 00:07:54,509
I painstakingly filled
each and every one of those holes.

151
00:07:54,533 --> 00:07:55,760
The result?

152
00:07:55,784 --> 00:08:00,610
One small paper sensor that costs
three cents and takes five minutes to run.

153
00:08:00,981 --> 00:08:04,406
This makes it 168 times faster,

154
00:08:04,430 --> 00:08:07,229
over 26,000 times less expensive,

155
00:08:07,253 --> 00:08:10,775
and over 400 times more sensitive
than our current standard

156
00:08:10,799 --> 00:08:12,759
for pancreatic cancer detection.

157
00:08:13,745 --> 00:08:20,735
(Applause)

158
00:08:22,738 --> 00:08:25,055
One of the best parts
of the sensor, though,

159
00:08:25,079 --> 00:08:27,580
is that it has close
to 100 percent accuracy,

160
00:08:27,604 --> 00:08:30,290
and can detect the cancer
in the earliest stages,

161
00:08:30,314 --> 00:08:32,998
when someone has close
to 100 percent chance of survival.

162
00:08:33,496 --> 00:08:35,443
And so in the next two to five years,

163
00:08:35,467 --> 00:08:38,802
this sensor could potentially lift
the pancreatic cancer survival rates

164
00:08:38,826 --> 00:08:42,924
from a dismal 5.5 percent
to close to 100 percent,

165
00:08:42,948 --> 00:08:45,603
and it would do similar
for ovarian and lung cancer.

166
00:08:46,091 --> 00:08:47,955
But it wouldn't stop there.

167
00:08:48,245 --> 00:08:49,899
By switching out that antibody,

168
00:08:49,923 --> 00:08:53,429
you can look at a different protein,
thus, a different disease --

169
00:08:53,453 --> 00:08:56,371
potentially any disease
in the entire world.

170
00:08:56,869 --> 00:09:01,493
So that ranges from heart disease,
to malaria, HIV, AIDS,

171
00:09:01,517 --> 00:09:03,794
as well as other forms
of cancer -- anything.

172
00:09:04,462 --> 00:09:06,409
And so, hopefully one day,

173
00:09:06,433 --> 00:09:08,845
we can all have that one extra uncle,

174
00:09:08,869 --> 00:09:12,103
that one mother, that one brother, sister,

175
00:09:12,127 --> 00:09:14,366
we can have that one more
family member to love.

176
00:09:15,023 --> 00:09:19,785
And that our hearts will be rid
of that one disease burden

177
00:09:19,809 --> 00:09:22,735
that comes from pancreatic,
ovarian and lung cancer,

178
00:09:22,759 --> 00:09:24,835
and potentially any disease.

179
00:09:24,859 --> 00:09:27,660
But through the Internet,
anything is possible.

180
00:09:27,684 --> 00:09:28,964
Theories can be shared,

181
00:09:28,988 --> 00:09:31,715
and you don't have to be
a professor with multiple degrees

182
00:09:31,739 --> 00:09:33,245
to have your ideas valued.

183
00:09:33,269 --> 00:09:37,310
It's a neutral space, where
what you look like, age or gender --

184
00:09:37,334 --> 00:09:38,490
it doesn't matter.

185
00:09:38,594 --> 00:09:40,424
It's just your ideas that count.

186
00:09:41,113 --> 00:09:45,815
For me, it's all about looking
at the Internet in an entirely new way,

187
00:09:45,839 --> 00:09:47,935
to realize that there's so much more to it

188
00:09:47,959 --> 00:09:50,829
than just posting duck-face
pictures of yourself online.

189
00:09:51,464 --> 00:09:52,614
(Laughter)

190
00:09:53,277 --> 00:09:54,939
You could be changing the world.

191
00:09:56,202 --> 00:10:01,464
So if a 15 year-old who didn't even know
what a pancreas was

192
00:10:01,488 --> 00:10:04,229
could find a new way
to detect pancreatic cancer --

193
00:10:05,451 --> 00:10:07,149
just imagine what you could do.

194
00:10:07,376 --> 00:10:08,614
Thank you.

195
00:10:08,638 --> 00:10:15,337
(Applause)