HARSH AGRAWAL
INDIA, 16
Project: CANCEReX
Basic Human Needs: Health
In 2017, Harsh participated in a national science fair in India, where he was inspired by young innovators committed to solving global problems. When he returned home, he became passionate about a problem he wanted to solve – pancreatic cancer. The disease takes hundreds of thousands of victims each year worldwide, with a survival rate lower than 7%, mainly due to its difficulty to detect early. After one year of research and consultation with various medical professionals, Harsh, and his partner Anmol, developed CANCEReX. Their innovation is an inexpensive, non-invasive strip that uses saliva to detect pancreatic cancer in early stages. Compared to traditional detection methods, CANCEReX is 95 times cheaper than an MRI scan, does not require the use of heavy equipment or assistance from a medical professional, and is the only non-invasive technique that exists for pancreatic cancer. In 2019, Harsh and Anmol won the Genius Olympiad Gold Medal at the State University of New York, and received the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research Award, which is the nation’s highest research honor for youth. Harsh is currently developing a novel algorithm to predict associative risk for developing pancreatic cancer from a patient’s basic information. In 2020, Harsh and Anmol will work with hospitals in India to further improve the accuracy of their strip. They want hospitals everywhere to adopt the CANCEReX detection method, saving many lives around the world.