Jack Andraka

Jack Andraka, a high school student from Maryland  created a paper sensor to detect pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancer for 3 cents in 5 minutes.For this project he was awarded the top prize at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair as well as the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award. He is currently working on the Qualcom Tricorder X Prize with a group of teens called Generation Z. He loves competition math, whitewater kayaking, folding modular origami and playing with his dog.

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“Incrementalism is Innovation’s Worst Enemy”

Value
17 Apr 2013
We are currently facing a crisis in medicine, one that I believe has much larger repercussions than climate change and would endanger each and every one of our lives. What’s happening is that we are seeing the emergence of these “super” diseases that mutate to be resistant to medical treatments and are difficult to diagnose, one of the main ones being cancer. In the next few years several cancers are predicted to increase their death tolls by 200% because of the lack of new medical innovation. These diseases are mutating at rates that are far faster than our current rate of medical innovation, and in the natural world it is survival of the fittest.