Health
In reply to the discussion: Did This 15-Year-Old Kid Just Change the Course of Medicine? [View all]mchill
(1,018 posts)I was in the hospital being treated for breast cancer and having a prophylactic salpingo-oopherectomy (to prevent ovarian cancer) as I have the brca2 gene. This gene also makes me 7x more susceptible to pancreatic cancer and melanoma than people not carrying this gene. I thought, ok, almost have 3 of these 4 cancers licked (almost), but there's nothing that can be done to detect pancreatic cancer early. Ruth Bader Ginsberg has survived a few years after her pancreatic cancer was diagnosed with a "routine CT exam." No one gets a routine CT exam, but that's what it would take.
I was grateful to hear of his discovery. I told my surgeon (from my hospital bed) about the discovery. She is a brca researcher. She was pleasantly surprised and after I described to her the story that I heard about the teststrips, she said to me "they've been trying to get a test like this for a long time with no success." She looked amazed and I can still hear say "Really?"
As I recall, this young man won a $50,000 prize from Google and was also a National Junior Kayak champion. Sounds like he will be a success no matter he does.