Breakthrough (12 page)

“Mom, Mom, it's mesothelin!”

“What?” my mom asked, understandably dumbfounded. “Is
something wrong? Who is mesothelin?”

“No, the biomarker, I found it, it's called mesothelin.”

“Oh! I knew you could do it, Jack!” she said. Now she was screaming too. “Does this mean you found the test?”

Well . . . no. But it was a step. A
big
one.

What it did mean was that if someone has pancreatic, ovarian, or even lung cancer, mesothelin is found at very high levels in their bloodstream. But the research papers also indicate that it's found in the earliest stages of the disease, when, if the cancer is detected, someone has close to a 100 percent chance of survival.

As often happens in science, the answer to one problem raised a new question. How did I plan on actually finding this protein in people? I knew that without a way of actually detecting that protein, and, thus, pancreatic cancer, my discovery and all my hard work were essentially useless in the real world.

Again, I scoured the internet and began to print out every article on mesothelin and detection methods that I could find. I became consumed, taking the articles with me to school to read while I was supposed to be working on my class work.

One day shortly after the midway point of my freshman year, I snuck an article on these things called single-walled carbon nanotubes into my biology class. Those are long, thin pipes of carbon that are each an atom thick and one-fifty-thousandth the diameter of your hair. Despite their extremely small size, carbon nanotubes
have these amazing properties. They're kind of like the superheroes of material science.

To sneakily read this article during class, I had to be very careful. My biology teacher had this uncanny sense of when I wasn't paying attention. She didn't just have eyes in the back of her head. It was like she had eyes on the sides of her head too.

And while I was reading this article under my desk, we were supposed to be paying attention to these other kind of interesting molecules in the body called antibodies. And these molecules are pretty valuable because they react only with one specific protein and are typically used by your immune system to fight off viruses and bacteria.

And it was then, sitting in class, that it suddenly hit me: I could combine what I was reading about—carbon nanotubes—with what I was supposed to be thinking about—antibodies.

I was having one of those moments when it all began coming together in my mind. I could take these nanotubes and mix them with antibodies (think of it as putting meatballs in some spaghetti) so that you have a network that reacts with only one protein—in this case, mesothelin. When the mesothelin reacts with the antibody, they form a larger molecule called an immunocomplex (imagine a super-beefed-up protein molecule). When this gigantic molecule is formed, it actually separates neighboring nanotubes and causes the network to spread, akin to taking a bundle of wires and pulling it
apart. When this happens there are fewer connections between the neighboring nanotubes and so there are fewer pathways for electrons to take when traveling through the network, increasing the electrical resistance! So the electrical properties of the nanotubes would change, and that was something I could measure.

I could feel the simple pleasure of all these puzzle pieces linking together in my head . . . and then . . . Busted! In the middle of my breakthrough, there was my biology teacher storming up to my desk. She had that angry look on her face. Again.

Be cool, Jack.

“Mr. Andraka!” she shouted.

From the moment I first walked into her classroom, it had been obvious that this teacher didn't like me. I asked too many questions. I didn't always do things the same way her textbook instructed.

I frantically began formulating my response, but before I had time to answer, she snatched my paper on carbon nanotubes out of my hand and held it up in the air with disdain as if waving around a porn magazine.

“What is this?” she snarled.

It's a science paper. Shouldn't that be a good thing?
I wanted to say, but didn't.

“It's just a science article,” I answered.

She responded with another disgusted look and walked away with the contraband science article.

Are you kidding me? Great!

She deposited my science paper in the dark recesses of her desk. I knew what this meant. There was only one way to get my paper back. I would have to wait until after class, approach her desk, and beg.

Time to swallow your pride, Jack.

After the bell rang, I approached. That was when I had to sit and endure her long-winded lecture on “respect.” I wasn't respecting her class. I wasn't respecting her lesson. I had no respect for anything. I was very disrespectful!

While she was speaking, I may have been reacting physically, nodding at the appropriate time, but I was in a different world, caught up in the excitement of my idea.

This is it!

Mashing these antibodies into a network of carbon nanotubes should work, at least in theory. However, there was a problem. These networks of carbon nanotubes are extremely flimsy and they needed to be supported. After school, I went straight home, sat on the floor of my room, and began brainstorming.

Hmmm . . . what is something that is cheap but could also offer a little support? I know, paper!

This should be easy. You start with some water, pour in some nanotubes, add antibodies, mix it up, take some paper, dip it, dry it, and you can detect cancer in seconds, long before it becomes
life-threatening. And because of the cheap materials needed, it would cost only pennies!

Then, suddenly, a thought occurred to me that thwarted my brilliant plan. There was absolutely no way my mom was going to allow me to do cancer research on my kitchen countertop or even in my basement. I also didn't have the right equipment my task required. I needed to be in a real laboratory.

I consulted the internet. I learned that the only way a fourteen-year-old kid like me could get access to a fancy laboratory is to first create a step-by-step written description of the idea and plan, called a proposal, and send it out to every doctor who specialized in pancreatic cancer and hope one of them believed in my idea enough to accept me.

The next four months of my life were spent working on an experimental design and a proposal for my theory. It was harder than honors biology. My proposal had to be over thirty pages long and include a budget, a materials list, a timeline, pitfalls, and reagents, which are substances used in chemical analyses. I described my theory of lacing mesothelin-specific antibodies in painstaking detail.

Once I had completed the finishing touches on my proposal, I went online to all the directories at local universities and compiled a master list of all the doctors who were in a position to accept me. I figured after I got back their acceptances, I would have to choose which laboratory I thought would be the best fit. That should be fun!

Over the next forty-eight hours I fired off my scientific proposal to two hundred different professors at places like Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health—essentially anyone who had anything to do with pancreatic cancer. And I sat back waiting for these positive emails to pour in, saying, “You're a genius! You're going to save us all!”

And I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The next day I was standing in front of my locker, about to grab my books for fifth-period biology class, when Damien approached. Unfortunately, Damien was one of a handful of classmates who had moved along with me to my new high school.

“Yo, Jack,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “What have you been working on lately?”

I knew there was only one reason this kid was being nice to me. Given my track record of recent science fair success, I figured he was fishing for information.

I chalked it up to desperation. After all, it was freshman year. That meant, for the first time, the winner of our local science fair would be eligible to qualify for an all-expenses-paid trip to
THE
Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Or as those who
worshipped science called it, ISEF.

Two years had gone by since that incredible and eye-opening trip to San Jose, California, when, as a seventh grader, I had watched Luke walk up onstage to accept his special award. After bearing witness to the most elite teen minds in the Milky Way, it made the totality of my accomplishments feel small in comparison. While my time at ISEF was educational and invigorating, it also left me feeling bereft. It was as if I had been handed the most spectacular bacon cheeseburger and, after taking one tiny bite, had it ripped from my jaws. I still had that ISEF taste in my mouth, and I wanted more.

Damien was standing a few feet to my left, studying my face for clues.

“Oh, nothing much,” I told him with a shrug. “Still just trying to come up with something.” I'm a terrible liar.

“That sucks,” he said. “Because this is the year you're going down, Andraka.”

“Yeah, right,” I responded.

I knew my comeback was lame, but I didn't care. Trash-talking was never a strength of mine. Besides, I decided I'd let my project speak for itself.

However, if my science project was going to be worth its weight in nanotubes, I was going to need to secure that laboratory—and fast. After the final bell rang, I hurried straight home, hopeful that an email would be waiting for me with the news that I was accepted into
a laboratory. I checked my inbox—nothing.

There's no need to worry
, I told myself.
Doctors are busy people
.

I hung out a lot in front of my computer that first night. When I wasn't hitting the refresh key every few seconds, I passed the time by studying the pictures that the doctors had posted of themselves on their hospital profile pages. I couldn't help but notice how inviting they all looked.

The next day when I came home from school, I had finally received my first response.

I opened it.

Thank you for inquiring about space at our laboratory for your research; unfortunately . . .

It was a rejection in the form of one of those automated responses. I didn't need to read any more.

“That's strange,” I told myself, shrugging it away. “I guess she just didn't get it.”

Later that day, my dad and I took a trip to the Chesapeake Bay to do a test run on the carbon paper strips. We wanted to see if the strips were sensitive enough to detect E. coli in the bay. The test worked, and, unfortunately for those who depend on the bay for their water supply, we detected large quantities of the deadly bacteria.

When I got home that night, there was another rejection.

Thank you for inquiring about space at our laboratory for your research; unfortunately . . .

This wasn't making sense. I opened up my proposal and checked it for errors. Everything checked out. Perhaps, I thought, I had made some horrible mistake in my introductory cover letter.

Dear Dr. So and So,

I am a high school student who attends North County High School. I am currently doing a science fair project on the use of nanotubes and antibodies to detect pancreatic cancer (strain RIP1). For my project, I plan on producing my antigens and antibodies through the immunization of mice with MUC1. The MUC1 will be derived from xenografted RIP1 in mice and will be extracted using a hot phenol: water extraction procedure. My procedure is attached to this email. I was wondering if I could work in your laboratory to produce MUC1, which will then be used to produce PAM4. Thank you for your time, your research is absolutely amazing. If you cannot help me can you refer me to someone who can.

Sincerely,
                      

Jack Andraka
               

I thought it worked. It was straightforward with just the right touch of flattery. However, on this second read, I did notice a problem
with the last sentence—I had placed a period where I should have placed a question mark. Ugh.

During the week that followed, a third rejection letter arrived. And a fourth. And a fifth.

Thank you for inquiring about space at our laboratory for your research.

We regret to inform you that we are unable to make space available.

Thank you and best of luck on your research.

Again, my youthful optimism held firm.
Maybe they didn't read it. I mean, it is thirty pages long
, I told myself. I still had a vast majority of doctors evaluating my proposal, all of whom could still give me lab space. But like an airborne virus on a transcontinental airplane, the rejections continued multiplying in my inbox.

I'd like to help, but the lab is really full of students. We just cannot take any more.

Another lesson I learned—the doctors' appearances in their hospital profile pictures don't always match up with their dispositions.