Nerd Wins Science Fair- Dipstick Test Would Have Saved Steve Jobs

A mop-haired kid from Maryland created a simple paper strip test that can cheaply and very accurately detect a wide range of diseases from a blood or urine sample with better accuracy than hospitals. Medicine will never be the same again.

From the DailyMail here:

A 15-year-old schoolboy could save millions of lives after he invented a new, low-cost test that can detect the early stages of a deadly form of cancer.

Jack Andraka from Crownsville, Maryland, developed a simple dip-stick test for levels of mesothelin, a biomarker for early stage pancreatic cancer found in blood and urine. It promises to revolutionise treatment of the disease, which currently kills 19 out of 20 sufferers after five years – largely because its so difficult to detect until its final stages.

Jack’s invention, for which was last month awarded the grand prize of $75,000 in scholarship funds at the 2012 Intel Science Fair, means that patients now have a simple method to detect pancreatic cancer before it becomes invasive. His novel patent-pending sensor has proved to be 28 times faster, 28 times less expensive, and over 100 times more sensitive than current tests.

We will soon be able to go to our Neighborhood Walgreens and purchase a disease detection combo-pack. Piss in a coffee cup, dunk six strips of paper and see if we have cancer, E-Coli or a variety of other diseases.