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The innovation of an Oregon teenager could change the way doctors treat pancreatic cancer, a deadly form of the disease whose only five-year survival rate is 7%.
13-year-old Rishab Jain of Stoller Middle School in Portland on Tuesday won the 3M Discovery Education Youth Challenge with an algorithm that uses machine learning to help doctors focus on the pancreas during cancer treatment. This can be difficult because the pancreas is often obscured by other organs and breathing and other bodily processes can cause it to move into the abdominal area. As a result, doctors sometimes have to deploy radiation therapy with a "circle of error" to ensure that they will reach the pancreas, but this could kill some healthy cells as collateral damage.
The Jain algorithm could alleviate some of these problems by helping doctors locate the pancreas accurately.
"In radiotherapy treatment where radiation is applied to destroy tumor cells, my tool follows the pancreas in the scanner itself," says Jain. "When the radiation reaches the pancreas, it reaches the treatment of the tumor with greater accuracy and efficiency."
Jain, who won the $ 20,000 Young Scientist Challenge for his idea, says that He was interested in the pancreas first. cancer last year during a trip to Boston, and became even more pbadionate when a family friend died of cancer. "[In Boston] I've heard about the low survival rate and the lethal nature of the disease," says Jain. "I'm also in programming, so I was learning about artificial intelligence. I decided to combine the two domains to try to solve a real problem using artificial intelligence.
With the help of 3M scientist and mentor Döne Demirgöz, Jain's work paid off this week at the competition in Minnesota. He says his software could work with existing radiotherapy equipment in hospitals or be integrated directly into new machines. He is currently in touch with doctors from local hospitals and Oregon, including the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, hoping to refine and materialize his idea.
For the moment, he says he's there. I will use his earnings to advance his machine learning project and fund the non-profit organization he created, the Samyak Science Society, which aims to promote STEM learning for "other children who may not have the chance like me "and to raise awareness about pancreatic cancer. He says that he will also invest some of the money in a university fund, so that he can become a biomedicine engineer or a doctor.
"For undergraduates, I'm not quite sure yet," says Jain. "But maybe I'm thinking of biomedical engineering because it has both areas. Biomedical engineering, then probably medical school to become a doctor. "
Of course, the schoolboy has a little time to find out – and in the meantime he has plenty of ways to occupy his time.
" I went back to Portland [after I won] so I'm went to my school to visit my teachers and talk to them about the news, "says Jain. "And also catch up on homework."
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