自古英雄出少年！JackAndraka 就是这样一个与众不同的孩子！

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来源：现代快报 2013-02-01

15岁少年发明测癌试纸 精确度超90%

美国马里兰州克朗斯维尔市15岁男孩杰克・安德拉卡痛感一名家庭朋友患胰腺癌去世，竟研究出了一种早期胰腺癌的测试方法!他发明的早期测癌法比当前的医学检 测法敏感有效400倍，然而花费只需3美分!杰克的测癌方法能让『癌症之王』----胰腺癌潜在患者在自身癌细胞尚处于萌芽状态时就发出『警报』，从而使他们的术后生存率几乎达到100%!杰克的测癌方法同样适用于卵巢癌、肺癌等其他众多癌症!

　　一滴血知癌变

　　根据报导，现年15岁的杰克・安德拉卡是美国马里兰州克朗斯维尔市的一名普通中学生，杰克是在一名朋友患胰腺癌去世后，暗暗立下了要攻克癌症的志向。他从一份科普杂志上读到了一篇关于碳纳米管的文章后，产生了灵感，摸索到了一个发现早期癌细胞的革命性方法!

杰克想出的是一种测试人体血液内『间皮索』含量的方法----『间皮索』是早期胰腺癌患者的血液和尿液中常有的一种生物指标。杰克用『间皮索』抗体和碳纳 米管制成一种特殊材料，然后覆盖在普通滤纸上，做成一种『测癌试纸』。测试者提供一滴血测试，透过试纸上的一些色调变化，就能精确测出自己血液中的『间皮索』含量程度。

　　求助连连遭拒

　　然而一开始，由于杰克没有高科技实验工具来制造这种『碳纳米管』试纸，以及检测他的神奇测癌方法，所以杰克只好向多名美国科学家求助，希望他们能让他使用实验室来优化和验证他的神奇测癌方法。然而令人难以置信的是，杰克的求助遭到了一个又一个美国科学家的拒绝，最后，总共有197位科学家都拒绝帮助和指导杰克进行他的测癌方法研究，一些科学家甚至还给杰克泼冷水，坦率地称他的早期测癌方法完全『不可行』，压根不可能实现。

　　直到杰克向第198个科学家、美国约翰・霍普金斯大学的病理学和肿瘤学教授安尼尔班・迈特拉博士求助时，迈特拉教授才终于同意帮助他，允许他在自己的实验室中进行研究，迈特拉教授还帮助杰克一起优化他的测癌方法。

　　精度超90%

　　杰克在约翰・霍普金斯大学中的实验证明，他的神奇测癌方法不但完全可行，并且几乎比现在所有的癌症测试方法都更加先进和快速!如今杰克发明的神奇早期测癌 法已经申报了美国专利。杰克发明的早期胰腺癌的测试方法，要比目前医学界流行的检测方法速度快上168倍、价格便宜26667倍，并且敏感度和有效度更是 高达400倍!

　　据悉，用杰克的神奇测癌法检测一次血液的代价，只需3美分，并且5分钟就能得知测试结果，而测癌精确度更是超过90%!不过更令医学界深感兴奋的是，杰克 发明的简单测癌方法可以用来检测其他各种癌症!因为只需对这种神奇『测癌试纸』上的检测材料做些不同的改变，就能轻易检测出各种不同癌症的生物标记!

　　获得两项大奖

　　目前许多美国科学家都已经认同杰克的神奇发明，还有人宣称这项医学发明甚至有望改变整个医学史的进程。去年11月，美国《史密森学会杂志》在华盛顿市向 15岁的杰克颁发了一年一度的美国青少年成就创意奖;上个月，在美国2012年英特尔科学节上，杰克又获得了75000美元的奖学基金，用来奖励他的发明 和成就。

据悉，杰克现在计划将他发明的『神奇测癌试纸』向公众进行大规模市场推广，他相信不用多久，全世界的药店都可以买到他的『神奇测癌试纸』，任何人都可以用它来检测自己的身体是否拥有癌细胞征兆，一旦发现早期征兆就立即就医，从而就能将癌症成功扼杀于萌芽状态!

（续……）

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来源：Smithsonian magazine, December 2012

• Science & Nature

JackAndraka, the Teen Prodigy of Pancreatic Cancer

It’s first period digital arts class, and the assignment is to makePhotoshop monsters. Sophomore Jack Andraka considers crossing a velociraptorwith a Brazilian wandering spider, while another boy grafts butterfly wingsonto a rhinoceros. Meanwhile, the teacher lectures on the deranged genius ofDoctor Moreau and Frankenstein, “a man who created something he didn’t takeresponsibility for.”

“You don’t have to do this, Jack!” somebody in back shouts.

The silver glint of a retainer: Andraka grins. Since he won the $75,000grand prize at this past spring’s Intel International Science and EngineeringFair, one of the few freshman ever to do so, he’s become a North County HighSchool celebrity to rival any soccer star or homecoming queen. A series ofjokes ensue about Andraka’s mad scientist doings in the school’s imaginary“dungeon” laboratory. In reality, Andraka created his potentially revolutionarypancreatic cancer detection tool at nearby Johns Hopkins University, though hedoes sometimes tinker in a small basement lab at the family’s house in leafyCrownsville, Maryland, where a homemade particle accelerator crowds thefoosball table.

This 15-year-old “Edison of our times,” as Andraka’s Hopkins mentor hascalled him, wears red Nikes carefully coordinated with his Intel T-shirt. Hisshaggy haircut is somewhere between Beatles and Bieber. At school one day, hecites papers from leading scientific publications, including Science, Natureand the Journal of Clinical Neurology. And that’s just in English class.In chemistry, he tells the teacher that he will make up a missed lab at home,where of course he has plenty of nitric acid to work with. In calculus, he doesnot join the other students who cluster around a blackboard equation likehungry young lions at a kill. “That’s so trivial,” he says, and plops down at adesk to catch up on assigned chapters from Brave New World instead.Nobody stops him, perhaps because last year, when his biology teacherconfiscated his clandestine reading material on carbon nanotubes, he was in themidst of the epiphany that scientists think has the potential to save lives.

After school Andraka’s mom, Jane, a hospital anesthetist, arrives in herbattered red Ford Escort station wagon with a saving supply of chocolate milk.She soon learns that Jack’s big brother, Luke—a senior, and a previous finalistin the same elite science fair—has been ordered to bring his handmade arcfurnace home. He built it in a school lab, but teachers grew nervous when hementioned that the device could generate temperatures of several thousanddegrees Fahrenheit, and melted a steel screw to prove it. The contraption willfind a spot in the Andraka basement.

“I just say ‘Don’t burn down the house or kill yourself or your brother,’”the boys’ mother cheerfully explains. “I don’t know enough physics and math toknow if that’s a death ray or not. I say use common sense, but I don’t knowwhat they’re working on down there.”

***

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancers, with a five-yearsurvival rate of 6 percent. Some 40,000 people die of it each year. Thediagnosis can be devastating because it is often delivered late, after thecancer has spread. Unlike the breast or colon, the pancreas is nestled deep inthe body cavity and difficult to image, and there is no telltale early symptomor lump. “By the time you bring this to a physician, it’s too late,” saysAnirban Maitra, a Johns Hopkins pathologist and pancreatic cancer researcherwho is Andraka’s mentor. “The drugs we have aren’t good for this disease.”

But as the cancer takes hold, the body does issue an unmistakable distresssignal: an overabundance of a protein called mesothelin. The problem is thatscientists haven’t yet developed a surefire way to look for this red flag inthe course of a standard physical. “The first point of entry would have to be acheap blood test done with a simple prick,” Maitra says.

That’s exactly what Andraka may have invented: A small dipstick probe thatuses just a sixth of a drop of blood appears to be much more accurate thanexisting approaches and takes five minutes to complete. It’s still preliminary,but drug companies are interested, and word is spreading. “I’ve gotten theseFacebook messages asking, ‘Can I have the test?’” Andraka says. “I amheartbroken to say no.”

***

That fateful day in freshman biology class last year, Andraka had a lot onhis mind. A close friend of his family had recently died of pancreatic cancer,and Andraka had been reading about the disease. At the same time, he and hisfather, Steve, a civil engineer, had been using carbon nanotubes to screencompounds in water from the Chesapeake Bay. Andraka had frankly become a littleobsessed with the nanotubes, which look to the naked eye like little piles ofblack dust, but are really tiny cylinders about 1/50,000 the diameter of ahuman hair that can form microscopic networks. “They have these amazingproperties,” Andraka explains. “They are stronger than steel. They conductelectricity better than copper.”

The Science paper he was covertly reading at his desk was aboutapplications for nanotubes. With half an ear, Andraka listened to his biologyteacher lecture on antibodies, which bind to particular proteins in the blood.Suddenly, the two ideas collided in his mind. What if he could lace a nanotubenetwork with mesothelin-specific antibodies, then introduce a drop of apancreatic cancer patient’s blood? The antibodies would bind to the mesothelinand enlarge. These beefed-up molecules would spread the nanotubes fartherapart, changing the electrical properties of the network: The more mesothelinpresent, the more antibodies would bind and grow big, and the weaker theelectrical signal would become. Other scientists had recently designed similartests for breast and prostate cancers, but nobody had addressed pancreaticcancer. “It’s called connecting the dots,” Maitra says.

Andraka wrote up an experimental protocol and e-mailed it to 200researchers. Only Maitra responded. “It was a very unusual e-mail,” heremembers. “I often don’t get e-mails like this from postdoctoral fellows, letalone high-school freshmen.” He decided to invite Andraka to his lab. Tooversee the project, he appointed a gentle postdoctoral chemist, who took thebaby-sitting assignment in stride. They expected to see Andraka for perhaps afew weeks over the summer.

Instead, the young scientist worked for seven months, every day afterschool and often on Saturdays until after midnight, subsisting on hard-boiledeggs and Twix as his mother dozed in the car in a nearby parking garage. He laboredthrough Thanksgiving and Christmas. He spent his 15th birthday in the lab.

Not having finished even freshman biology, he had a lot to learn. Hecalled forceps “tweezers.” He had a nasty run-in with the centrifuge machine,in which a month’s worth of cell culture samples exploded, and Andraka burstinto tears.

But sometimes his lack of training yielded elegant solutions. For his teststrips, he decided to use simple filter paper, which is absorbent enough tosoak up the necessary solution of carbon nano­tubes and mesothelin antibodies,and inexpensive. To measure the electrical change in a sample, he bought a $50ohmmeter at Home Depot. He and his dad built the Plexiglas testing apparatusused to hold the strips as he reads the current. He swiped a pair of his mom’ssewing needles to use as electrodes.

About 2:30 a.m. one December Sunday, Jane Andraka was jolted from herparking lot stupor by an ecstatic Jack. “He opens the door,” she remembers,“and you know how your kid has this giant smile, and that shine in their eyewhen something went right?” The test had detected mesothelin in artificialsamples. A few weeks later, it pinpointed mesothelin in the blood of micebearing human pancreatic tumors.

Andraka’s appetite for science and success knows no bounds: His euphoricreaction to the Intel win quickly went viral on YouTube. In the months sincethat triumph, reality has sunk in a little as he spoke with attorneys andlicensing companies. “I just finished the patent,” he says, “and I’m going tostart an LLC soon.” But Maitra—who believes that the dipstick should ultimatelybe modified to identify other flag-raising cancer proteins along withmesothelin—has made clear that Andraka has a lot more testing to do beforepublishing a peer-reviewed paper on the work, the next step. Even if all goeswell, the product probably wouldn’t be marketed for a decade or so, which, to ateenager, is practically eternity.

And of course, he’s got to start working on next year’s science fairproject. He has no shortage of ideas.

“He’s ahead of his time in many ways,” Maitra says. “Taking one idea andseeing how to extrapolate something even more expansive, that’s the differencebetween being great and being a genius. And who comes up with ideas like thisat 14? It’s crazy.” Andraka is young enough to speak with perfect earnestnessabout “when I grow up.”

Even so, he is in high demand, giving TED talks and speaking atinternational ideas festivals. His iPhone contains snapshots of dignitariesranging from Bill Clinton to Will.i.am. In September, Andraka attended highschool so infrequently that a few teachers thought he’d dropped out. “But Idon’t want to quit high school,” he says. “High school is fun—sometimes.”Occasionally he wishes that he had more time for it, and kid stuff in general.He likes to watch “Glee” and to compete with Luke on the national juniorwhitewater rafting team.

Then there’s all that homework to catch up on. His English class is busydiscussing Brave New World, about a technological dystopia where the inventorHenry Ford is worshiped as a god. “Your Fordliness,” the teacher explains, isthe standard honorific.

“Your Jackliness,” one classmate whispers.

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