Andraka at Innovation Live

While his classmates were spending the summer either swimming or camping, Jack Andrada was locked in his room doing something most normal youths may not even dream of doing during vacation time: researching 8,000 types of proteins. Why? It all started when an uncle of his died of pancreatic cancer when he was 13 years old. And since 85 per cent of pancreatic cancers were detected late and had a measly two per cent chance of survival, he asked himself, why it couldn't be done in a better way so more lives could be saved? "'Why are we so bad with this cancer', I told myself at that time," the inventor, scientist, STEM advocate and cancer researcher said at Innovation Live in Dubai.