Meet Jack Andraka, a teenager who at the age of 15 created a novel paper sensor that detects pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancer 168 times faster, 400 times more sensitive, and 26,000 times less expensive than the medical standard. How did he do it? Using the internet, as he admits on BOLDtalks 2014 that was held on March 22, 2014 at the Dubai Community and Arts Center.
During his presentation, Jack takes us through his discovery journey that started with the unfortunate loss of a close family friend whom he considered to be his uncle. Armed with passion and motivation, Jack relentlessly searched the internet for information on proteins that can be used for his detection method. Ultimately, Jack does find his answer, and subsequently gets accepted by John Hopkins University to conduct his research (after receiving 199 rejections, he jokes).
The most thing that struck me about the presentation is an interesting point that Jack makes on how we treat knowledge as a commodity. Jack boldly asks, "what message are we sending out here when listening to a song costs 99 cents, and reading a (research) paper costs 35 dollars?". When Jack poses this question, of course he does not address here the cost of educators or education for that matter; he merely refers to the price of knowledge availability on a commonly accessible platform such as the internet.
This proposed openness of knowledge poses an opportunity for positively impacting the human life, overall. Yet with a lot of talk on making information available for the betterment of our society, and after listening to the BOLDtalk of Jack Andraka, I reflected upon the state of research taking place here at the moment. Without any intention to undermine any of the current on-going efforts, I can't help but feel that there is no clear direction nor focus in our research activities. I also feel that research must be collaborative with the extent of collaboration sometimes spanning across time.
What I feel, in general, is that people fear collaboration with one another and take it upon themselves to be the mastermind behind the idea, the planner, and the implementer all at the same time. If the idea is small and its intended impact is very limited, working alone for the credit is fine; but if the idea is substantial, and life-changing like discovering methods to detect pancreatic cancer for example, then I strongly believe that researchers must be less selfish and allow for their ideas to be put out there as someone else may just make it better!
We must also look inwards towards our own community and identify our own sources of inspiration. It is important for us to be inspired by international work, ideas, and research; but the fact is, not everything out there works here. So in addendum, we must get inspired with one another as well, and not belittle those ideas that are specific and relevant to our society.
On that note of getting inspired, I leave you with a clip from Jack's TED talk titled 'For a World Without Cancer' which is more or less a little similar to what he discussed during BOLDtalks. Enjoy!
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| Jack Andraka at BOLDtalks 2014 |
During his presentation, Jack takes us through his discovery journey that started with the unfortunate loss of a close family friend whom he considered to be his uncle. Armed with passion and motivation, Jack relentlessly searched the internet for information on proteins that can be used for his detection method. Ultimately, Jack does find his answer, and subsequently gets accepted by John Hopkins University to conduct his research (after receiving 199 rejections, he jokes).
The most thing that struck me about the presentation is an interesting point that Jack makes on how we treat knowledge as a commodity. Jack boldly asks, "what message are we sending out here when listening to a song costs 99 cents, and reading a (research) paper costs 35 dollars?". When Jack poses this question, of course he does not address here the cost of educators or education for that matter; he merely refers to the price of knowledge availability on a commonly accessible platform such as the internet.
This proposed openness of knowledge poses an opportunity for positively impacting the human life, overall. Yet with a lot of talk on making information available for the betterment of our society, and after listening to the BOLDtalk of Jack Andraka, I reflected upon the state of research taking place here at the moment. Without any intention to undermine any of the current on-going efforts, I can't help but feel that there is no clear direction nor focus in our research activities. I also feel that research must be collaborative with the extent of collaboration sometimes spanning across time.
What I feel, in general, is that people fear collaboration with one another and take it upon themselves to be the mastermind behind the idea, the planner, and the implementer all at the same time. If the idea is small and its intended impact is very limited, working alone for the credit is fine; but if the idea is substantial, and life-changing like discovering methods to detect pancreatic cancer for example, then I strongly believe that researchers must be less selfish and allow for their ideas to be put out there as someone else may just make it better!
We must also look inwards towards our own community and identify our own sources of inspiration. It is important for us to be inspired by international work, ideas, and research; but the fact is, not everything out there works here. So in addendum, we must get inspired with one another as well, and not belittle those ideas that are specific and relevant to our society.
On that note of getting inspired, I leave you with a clip from Jack's TED talk titled 'For a World Without Cancer' which is more or less a little similar to what he discussed during BOLDtalks. Enjoy!
Follow me on twitter: @JaberRami
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