Teenager invents cheap and highly selective cancer diagnostics test

If you’re feeling anxious about how U.S. kids lag the world in science and math, read this story of a high school teenager from Maryland who came up with a prize-winning breakthrough that could change how cancer and other fatal diseases are diagnosed and treated.

15 year old teenager Jack Andraka may have revolutionized cancer diagnostics [i]. Andraka has invented a pancreatic cancer test that is 168 times faster and considerably cheaper than the current testing standard in the field: a paper test strip that uses minute changes in conductivity to detect targeted viruses or antigens faster, cheaper and more accurately than today’s standard diagnostics.