Buzz
In high school, many teenagers are simply adjusting to the challenges of adolescence, coping with the awkwardness of growing into their own bodies. But there are others who face even more significant challenges, taking on major medical issues like cancer, influenza, and other life-threatening diseases that have affected humans for centuries. While it's already remarkable that some young individuals decide to study these complex topics, a select few have gone above and beyond by making groundbreaking advances in the medical field.
10. Ethan Manuell
In the spring of 2015, eighth grader Ethan Manuell from Rochester, Minnesota, was visiting his oncologist. Since the age of four, Ethan had been using a hearing aid in his left ear, which led him to an innovative idea for his school's science fair project.
Ethan became curious about how air impacts the zinc batteries used in hearing aids. When replacing the batteries in a hearing aid, a tab or sticker over the battery connection has to be peeled off. Inspired, he found some old toy bugs and modified them to run on the same kind of batteries as hearing aids. Through a series of tests, Ethan discovered that the batteries lasted 85 percent longer if they were exposed to air for five minutes. This extra battery life could provide hearing aid users with an additional one to two days of use, saving them an average of $70 each year. Ethan also won the top prize at his school’s science fair for his “five minute rule.”
9. Tony Hansberry
At 14 years old, Tony Hansberry was unlike most boys his age. While many might not know what a hysterectomy is, Hansberry had a deep understanding of the procedure. During his high school years, he developed an innovative and more efficient method for stitching patients up after the surgery.
Hansberry, a student at a magnet school focused on health and medicine, got the idea while interning at a hospital in the summer of 2008. He worked with the administrative director at the University of Florida’s Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research. It was there that Hansberry discovered how to use an endo stitch—a tool with two clamps for suturing—in a vertical direction, which was a new application. Previously, the endo stitch was used horizontally. Hansberry’s technique not only simplifies the process of closing the incision after a hysterectomy, but it also accelerates the stitching process. Today, his approach is widely used by gynecologists.
Currently studying biomedical engineering at Florida A&M University, Hansberry has aspirations of becoming a neurosurgeon.
8. Suman Mulumudi
One evening at the dinner table in Seattle, Suman Mulumudi’s parents, both doctors, shared stories about the challenges they faced in their medical work. Mulumudi’s father, a cardiologist, mentioned that his stethoscope was not performing well when detecting weak heartbeats. In such cases, he often ordered echocardiograms for his patients, though they were time-consuming and costly. Inspired by his father’s dilemma, 15-year-old Mulumudi used a 3-D printer to design a device that attaches to a smartphone, alongside an app that functions as a stethoscope. This innovation, named 'Steth IO,' turned out to be superior in two ways: it produced clearer sounds and displayed a visual graph of the heartbeat on the screen.
But Mulumudi didn’t stop there; his inventive spirit continued. The second device he created supports doctors during angioplasty procedures, which are used to clear blockages or narrowing in arteries. One challenge in these procedures is accurately determining the size of the lesions that need to be supported with stents. If doctors estimate incorrectly, it could result in patients needing to return to the hospital for corrections. To solve this, Mulumudi designed 'LesionSizer,' another 3-D printed tool that helps cardiologists precisely measure lesions without altering their approach to the procedure.
After the success of Steth IO, Mulumudi made an appearance on 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon in May 2014. He is now a student at the prestigious Lakeside School in Seattle, which has produced renowned alumni like Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
Elana Simon, a young innovator from New York, began facing severe stomach pain during her childhood. After consulting numerous specialists, doctors remained unsure about her condition until she was 12. That’s when she was diagnosed with fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of liver cancer.
Elana Simon of New York endured intense stomach pain as a child, prompting visits to various specialists. It wasn’t until she turned 12 that the cause of her suffering was identified: she had fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, a rare and serious type of liver cancer.
Simon was fortunate to survive, as only 32% of individuals diagnosed with this type of cancer live beyond five years. One of the main challenges is that by the time the disease is detected, it has typically already spread. Furthermore, research into the disease has been sparse due to its rarity, with only about 60 cases diagnosed annually in the United States. It primarily affects women under the age of 35.
At 18 years old in 2013, Simon was seeking a high school internship when she conceived the idea of genetically sequencing fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma cells to identify the mutation responsible for the cancer. Collaborating with her surgeon, she gathered tumor samples from other patients with the same condition. After sequencing the genes from 15 samples, the researchers discovered a chimera—two genes fused together to form a new protein. While further research is required to determine if the chimera is the cause of the disease, the findings were promising.
In February 2014, Simon co-authored a paper that was published in the prestigious journal 'Science.' She also appeared on 'The Dr. Oz Show' and had the opportunity to meet President Obama. Currently, Simon is pursuing a degree in computer science at Harvard University.
Jack Andraka, at the age of 14, became deeply concerned about pancreatic cancer, which has one of the highest mortality rates of any cancer due to its rapid spread. The traditional testing method is outdated, over 60 years old, and unreliable, requiring time to send samples to a lab. This reality deeply troubled Andraka, especially after losing a close family friend to the disease. He began researching pancreatic cancer biomarkers online in hopes of finding a better diagnostic method.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers because it spreads quickly. The current diagnostic method requires sending samples to a lab, which is time-consuming. Even once they arrive, the test used is over 60 years old and not very accurate. This situation troubled 14-year-old Jack Andraka from Baltimore, Maryland, especially after the loss of a close family friend to the disease. He took to the Internet to research pancreatic cancer and its biomarkers, hoping to find a better way to detect the disease.
Once Andraka identified the biomarkers, he devised his strategy and sent over 200 packages detailing his approach, budget, and timeline to cancer researchers across the U.S. He received 199 rejection letters, some with harsh critiques of his idea, but Dr. Anirban Maitra, the head of pancreatic cancer research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, offered to assist Andraka. In the next seven months, after school and on weekends, Andraka created a test that detects high levels of mesothelin. This protein is produced by the body in the earliest and most treatable stages of pancreatic cancer. Andraka claims his tests can be completed in five minutes, are far more accurate than traditional tests, and cost only $50, compared to several hundred dollars for current tests. In addition to pancreatic cancer, this test could also aid in the early detection of ovarian, breast, and lung cancers.
After Andraka's groundbreaking discovery became public in 2012, when he was just 15, Michelle Obama invited him to the State of the Union address. He also won the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award, which comes with a $100,000 prize. The tests are currently undergoing preclinical trials, and Andraka began studying at Stanford University in the fall of 2015.
5. Brittany Wenger
Brittany Wenger from Sarasota, Florida, developed a passion for computer science while in seventh grade, particularly drawn to artificial intelligence (AI). After discovering AI, she got a coding book and taught herself how to program. Another significant event in Wenger’s life occurred in 10th grade, when her cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer. During this period, she learned that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. Although Wenger had been working on an AI system for soccer, she decided to shift her focus. She embarked on developing an AI program to diagnose breast cancer instead.
During a conversation with her cousin, Wenger learned that the least invasive, most affordable, and quickest method to diagnose breast cancer is through fine needle aspirates (FNA). However, these tests often lack accuracy, leading many doctors to avoid using them. To improve the reliability of FNA tests, Wenger created an AI program called Cloud4Cancer, which analyzes FNA test samples and detects patterns too intricate for humans to identify. Her program boasts a 99.1 percent sensitivity to malignancy, significantly enhancing the accuracy of FNA tests.
In 2012, Wenger won the Google Science Fair and was invited to the White House to meet President Obama. She is currently attending Duke University, where she plans to become both a pediatric oncologist and a research scientist.
4. Serena Fasano
Diarrhea caused by E. coli is a severe issue in developing nations, claiming about six million lives each year, with most victims being children under two. In 2003, thirteen-year-old Serena Fasano was unaware of this crisis while enjoying a yogurt at her home in Howard County, Maryland. As she read the yogurt container’s ingredient list, she came across the term 'lactobacillus,' a type of bacteria. This sparked her curiosity about the bacteria in yogurt, leading her to conduct her first science fair experiment. With her father's help, a director at the Mucosal Biology Research Center at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, she obtained E. coli samples. Mixing the bacteria with yogurt, she found that the more yogurt present, the fewer E. coli bacteria remained. Her project earned top honors at both her school and regional science fairs, marking just the beginning of Fasano's journey.
In the next three years, Fasano collaborated with a doctor at the Maryland School of Medicine to investigate what in yogurt could eliminate E. coli. She discovered that lactobacillus releases a substance lethal to E. coli. Fasano was able to break this substance down into five components, one of which, an undiscovered protein, seemed to have the strongest effect on the bacteria. In February 2006, she was awarded a patent for this protein. Currently, Fasano works as a family planning health educator in New York City.
3. Angela Zhang
Angela Zhang, a freshman at her high school in Cupertino, California, began reading research papers on bio-engineering. Although the papers were somewhat difficult, she found joy in decoding them, as if solving a puzzle. By her sophomore year, she was given the opportunity to work in a lab at Stanford. During her junior year, she embarked on her own ambitious research project with the ultimate goal of curing cancer.
By the time she reached her senior year, Zhang had written her own research paper in her free time, which outlined her theory on curing cancer. Her idea was to combine cancer treatment with polymer, which would be attached to nanoparticles. These nanoparticles would then be injected into the body to target cancer cells. Once the patient underwent an MRI, doctors would be able to pinpoint the tumors' exact locations. Zhang proposed that if infrared light was directed at the tumors, the polymer would melt, releasing the drug and killing the cancer cells without harming healthy ones. Her tests on mice showed nearly complete disappearance of the tumors.
In 2011, Zhang participated in the National Siemens Math, Science, and Technology Competition and took home the top prize, which included a $100,000 scholarship. In February 2012, at 17 years old, she attended the White House Science Fair, where she had the opportunity to present her groundbreaking research to President Barack Obama.
Zhang is currently pursuing a degree in biomedical engineering at Harvard University. She spends her summers at Stanford, where she continues to advance her research on cancer treatment.
2. Eric Chen
While many associate the flu with staying home from school and watching The Price Is Right, the influenza virus is far more dangerous—it is a deadly disease, and a mutation could lead to a global plague at any moment. This harsh reality struck Eric Chen in 2009 when he was just 13 years old. Living in San Diego, he was hearing about the H1N1 influenza strain that was spreading globally. Eager to make a difference, Chen set out to create a computer program that would assist him in studying the biological data of the flu.
Chen focused on finding inhibitors for a protein known as influenza endonuclease, which is responsible for making the flu contagious. By identifying and targeting these inhibitors, the virus could be rendered ineffective since a non-contagious flu cannot spread. Using his custom-designed computer program and a wet lab, Chen narrowed down a pool of half a million potential inhibitors to just six. He hopes that his research will contribute to the development of antiviral drugs that can treat, cure, and even prevent future outbreaks.
At 17, in 2013, Chen showcased his findings and took home top honors at the Google Science Fair, the Intel Science Talent Search, and the Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology. Currently, he is pursuing his studies in mathematics and computer science at Harvard University.
1. Joe Landolina
In the United States, trauma is the leading cause of death for individuals under 45, and it ranks as the fourth overall leading cause of death. A significant factor contributing to the deadliness of trauma is internal organ damage, as it is difficult to stop bleeding from internal lacerations. Standard life-saving techniques like using a tourniquet or applying pressure cannot be employed to control bleeding when internal organs are injured.
To address this issue, 17-year-old Joe Landolina took part in a business competition at New York University in 2011, where he was the only freshman competing against PhD and MBA candidates. Landolina proposed the creation of an organic gel or foam that could seal wounds. His idea won, and over the next three years, he developed a plant-based gel that solidifies upon contact with blood or tissue. This gel, called VetiGel, uses a protein involved in blood clotting to form a mesh. Landolina’s gel can close both internal and external wounds in 20 seconds or less, and since it’s plant-based, it can safely remain in the body as it heals.
VetiGel has received FDA approval for use in animals, and Landolina anticipates that it could be approved for human use by 2016. He hopes to see VetiGel become widely available and included in first aid kits across the globe.
