Jack Andraka is a cancer researcher that created a test for pancreatic cancer that will revolutionize the field. He’s an advocate for open access to scientific research. He’s given a TED Talk and appeared on the Colbert Report. Oh, and he’s a 17-year-old high school student.
Andraka’s story is remarkable. After a close family friend died of pancreatic cancer, he was inspired to investigate how this could have happened. He discovered that a main cause of the low survival rate of pancreatic cancer patients was a lack of early detection. While discreetly reading an article about nanotubes, much to his teacher’s disapproval, during a biology class, Andraka had an “a-ha” moment where he figured out how he could design a better cancer screening test.
His passion and enthusiasm lead him to Johns Hopkins University, where he received 199 rejections for his proposal before a professor finally granted him lab space to work in. The test he developed in that lab is over 90 percent accurate in detecting the cancer, 168 times faster than the current test, and 1/26,000 as expensive, costing a mere three cents.
One of the main stumbling blocks to Andraka was his limited access to scientific journals. He has since become an advocate for open access, or having scientific information free and available to the public.
During his speech at SXSWEdu, Andraka called knowledge a human right adding that knowledge should not be a commodity just for some.
His enthusiasm poured off the stage, calling for more experimentation in classrooms and for kids to follow whatever they are passionate about, not matter what.
However, his talk returned back to the need for not only students, but all researchers, to have open access to scientific information, telling the crowd that open access would lead to a massive increase in innovation.
The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) is a bill before the US Congress that would help open up publicly funded research to the public at large. Andraka is a strong supporter of FASTR. This access to scientific research is what Andraka describes as a virtual human right.