TED2013
Jack Andraka: A promising test for pancreatic cancer ... from a teenager
Jack Andraka: Un test promiţǎtor pentru cancerul pancreatic ... descoperit de un adolescent
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Peste 85% din numǎrul total de cancere de pancreas sunt detectate târziu, când pacienții au mai puţin de 2% şanse de vindecare. Cum e posibil? Jack Andraka ne vorbeşte despre cum a pus la punct un test pentru detectarea cancerului pancreatic incipient care costǎ foarte puţin, este eficient și neinvaziv – toate astea înainte de a împlini 16 ani.
Jack Andraka - Cancer detector inventor
A paper on carbon nanotubes, a biology lecture on antibodies and a flash of insight led 15-year-old Jack Andraka to design a cheaper, more sensitive cancer detector. Full bio
A paper on carbon nanotubes, a biology lecture on antibodies and a flash of insight led 15-year-old Jack Andraka to design a cheaper, more sensitive cancer detector. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
Have you ever experienced a moment in your life
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Aţi trecut vreodatǎ printr-un moment în viaţǎ,
00:16
that was so painful and confusing
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atât de dureros şi derutant
00:19
that all you wanted to do
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încât tot ce v-ați fi dorit
00:21
was learn as much as you could to make sense of it all?
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era sǎ învǎţați orice era nevoie
ca sǎ descifrați misterul?
ca sǎ descifrați misterul?
00:25
When I was 13, a close family friend
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Când aveam 13 ani, un prieten apropiat de familie
00:28
who was like an uncle to me
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care mi-a fost ca un unchi,
00:30
passed away from pancreatic cancer.
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a murit de cancer pancreatic.
00:33
When the disease hit so close to home,
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Lovindu-mă atât de profund,
00:35
I knew I needed to learn more,
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am realizat cǎ trebuia sa aflu mai mult,
00:37
so I went online to find answers.
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aşa cǎ am intrat pe internet să caut răspunsuri.
00:40
Using the Internet, I found a variety of statistics
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Pe internet am gǎsit o varietate de statistici
00:43
on pancreatic cancer,
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referitoare la cancerul de pancreas
00:45
and what I had found shocked me.
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şi ce am aflat m-a șocat.
00:47
Over 85 percent of all pancreatic cancers
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Peste 85% din cazurile de cancer pancreatic
00:51
are diagnosed late,
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sunt descoperite târziu,
00:53
when someone has less than a two percent chance of survival.
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când pacientul are șanse mai mici de 2% de supravieţuire.
00:57
Why are we so bad at detecting pancreatic cancer?
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De ce suntem atât de înceţi în detectarea acestui cancer?
01:01
The reason? Today's current modern medicine
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Motivul? Medicina actuală
01:05
is a 60-year-old technique.
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foloseşte o metodă veche de 60 de ani.
01:07
That's older than my dad.
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Până și tata e mai tânǎr de atât.
01:09
(Laughter)
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(Râsete)
01:13
But also, it's extremely expensive,
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Dar testele sunt şi foarte scumpe,
01:15
costing 800 dollars per test,
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costă 800$ un test,
01:19
and it's grossly inaccurate,
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şi sunt teribil de imprecise,
01:21
missing 30 percent of all pancreatic cancers.
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ratând 30% din totalul cazurilor de cancer pancreatic.
01:25
Your doctor would have to be ridiculously suspicious
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Doctorul ar trebui sǎ fie aproape convins
01:28
that you have the cancer in order to give you this test.
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cǎ aveți acest cancer ca sǎ comande testul.
01:31
Learning this, I knew there had to be a better way.
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Când am aflat, am intuit cǎ trebuia sǎ existe o cale mai bună.
01:35
So I set up a scientific criteria
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Am decis criteriile ştiinţifice
01:37
as to what a sensor would have to look like
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pentru un senzor eficient
01:39
in order to effectively diagnose pancreatic cancer.
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în semnalarea cancerului de pancreas.
01:43
The sensor would have to be inexpensive, rapid,
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Testul trebuia sǎ fie ieftin, rapid,
01:47
simple, sensitive, selective,
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simplu, precis, selectiv,
01:50
and minimally invasive.
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şi neinvaziv.
01:53
Now, there's a reason why this test
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Existǎ un motiv pentru care testul
01:55
hasn't been updated in over six decades,
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n-a fost îmbunătățit în mai bine de şase decenii.
01:59
and that's because, when we're looking for pancreatic cancer,
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Când cǎutăm semnele de cancer pancreatic,
02:02
we're looking at your bloodstream,
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ne uitǎm la circuitul sangvin,
02:03
which is already abundant in all these tons and tons of protein,
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oricum abundent cu mii de proteine,
02:08
and you're looking for this miniscule difference
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iar noi cǎutăm o diferenţă cantitativă
02:10
in this tiny amount of protein,
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minusculǎ la doar una din proteine,
02:12
just this one protein.
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doar una singurǎ.
02:13
That's next to impossible.
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E aproape imposibil.
02:15
However, undeterred due to my teenage optimism --
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Cu toate astea, mulțumitǎ optimismului copilăresc, nu m-am descurajat.
02:19
(Applause) —
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(Aplauze) --
02:25
I went online to a teenager's two best friends,
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M-am dus online la cei mai buni prieteni ai adolescenţilor:
02:28
Google and Wikipedia.
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Google şi Wikipedia.
02:30
I got everything for my homework from those two sources.
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Găsesc totul pentru teme la aceste două surse.
02:34
And what I had found was an article
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Şi am gǎsit un articol listând
02:37
that listed a database of over 8,000 different proteins
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o bazǎ de date cu peste 8.000 de proteine distincte
02:41
that are found when you have pancreatic cancer.
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prezente în sânge când ai cancer de pancreas.
02:43
So I decided to go and make it my new mission
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Aşadar mi-am propus să verific
02:47
to go through all these proteins and see which ones
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toate aceste proteine să văd care ar putea
02:50
could serve as a biomarker for pancreatic cancer.
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servi drept biomarker pentru cancerul pancreatic.
02:52
And to make it a bit simpler for myself,
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Pentru a-mi simplifica misiunea
02:55
I decided to map out a scientific criteria. And here it is.
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am stabilit o listǎ de criterii ştiinţifice. Iat-o.
02:59
Essentially first, the protein would have to be found
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Mai întâi, proteina trebuia sǎ fie prezentǎ
03:01
in all pancreatic cancers at high levels in the bloodstream
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în toate formele de cancer pancreatic
în concentrații ridicate,
în concentrații ridicate,
03:04
in the earliest stages, but also only in cancer.
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în stadii incipiente, dar specifice cancerului.
03:09
And so I'm just plugging and chugging through this gargantuan task,
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Aşadar mă arunc în această muncă astronomică
03:12
and finally, on the 4,000th try,
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şi într-un final, la a 4.000-a încercare,
03:15
when I'm close to losing my sanity,
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când sunt aproape sǎ-mi pierd minţile,
03:17
I find the protein.
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gǎsesc proteina cu pricina.
03:19
And the name of the protein I'd located
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Numele acestei proteine
03:21
was called mesothelin,
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e Mesotelinǎ.
03:23
and it's just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill type protein,
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Nu e decât o proteinǎ de rând,
03:26
unless of course you have pancreatic,
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cu excepția cancerului pancreatic,
03:27
ovarian or lung cancer,
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ovarian sau pulmonar,
03:29
in which case it's found at these very high levels in your bloodstream.
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când proteina e în concentrații foarte mari în sânge.
03:32
But also the key is
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E important
03:34
that it's found in the earliest stages of the disease,
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cǎ mesotelina apare în stadiile incipiente ale bolii,
03:37
when someone has close to 100 percent chance
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când există aproape 100%
03:39
of survival.
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şanse de supravieţuire.
03:40
So now that I'd found a reliable protein I could detect,
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Acum cǎ stabilisem o proteinǎ specifică,
03:44
I then shifted my focus to actually detecting that protein,
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mi-am îndreptat atenţia cǎtre detectarea efectivă a proteinei,
03:47
and, thus, pancreatic cancer.
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şi, prin urmare, a cancerului pancreatic.
03:49
Now, my breakthrough came in a very unlikely place,
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Succesul mi-a surâs într-un loc neaşteptat,
03:53
possibly the most unlikely place for innovation:
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poate cel mai improbabil pentru o inovaţie,
03:55
my high school biology class,
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laboratorul de biologie al liceului,
03:57
the absolute stifler of innovation.
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sufocarea absolută a inovației.
04:00
(Laughter) (Applause)
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(Râsete) (Aplauze)
04:05
And I had snuck in this article on these things called
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Am furișat un articol despre
04:08
carbon nanotubes, and that's just a long, thin pipe of carbon
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nanotuburi de carbon, tuburi subţiri şi lungi de carbon
04:12
that's an atom thick
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de grosimea unui atom –
04:13
and one 50 thousandth the diameter of your hair.
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de 50.000 de ori mai subţiri decât firul de pǎr.
04:16
And despite their extremely small sizes,
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În ciuda dimensiunilor extrem de reduse,
04:18
they have these incredible properties.
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au proprietǎţi incredibile.
04:20
They're kind of like the superheroes of material science.
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Sunt un fel de supereroi ai fizicii materialelor.
04:22
And while I was sneakily reading this article
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În timp ce citeam pe furiş articolul
04:25
under my desk in my biology class,
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sub standul din laboratorul de biologie,
04:27
we were supposed to be paying attention
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trebuia să fim atenți la
04:28
to these other kind of cool molecules called antibodies.
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alte molecule interesante, numite anticorpi.
04:32
And these are pretty cool because they only react
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Anticorpii sunt interesanți pentru cǎ fiecare reacţionează
04:34
with one specific protein,
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cu o singură proteină specificǎ,
04:36
but they're not nearly as interesting as carbon nanotubes.
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dar nu la fel de interesanţi ca nanotuburile de carbon.
04:38
And so then, I was sitting in class,
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Şi cum stăteam aşa la oră,
04:42
and suddenly it hit me:
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mi-a cǎzut fisa.
04:44
I could combine what I was reading about,
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Aş putea combina ce citisem
04:47
carbon nanotubes,
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despre nanotuburi,
04:48
with what I was supposed to be thinking about, antibodies.
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cu ce se preda la oră despre anticorpi.
04:51
Essentially, I could weave a bunch of these antibodies
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În esenţǎ, aş putea incorpora anticorpi
04:54
into a network of carbon nanotubes
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într-o rețea de nanotuburi de carbon
04:56
such that you have a network
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încât sǎ rezulte o reţea
04:58
that only reacts with one protein,
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care sǎ reacţioneze cu o proteinǎ unicǎ,
05:00
but also, due to the properties of these nanotubes,
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dar care, datoritǎ proprietǎţilor specifice ale nanotuburilor,
05:03
it would change its electrical properties
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ar schimba proprietǎţile electrice ale reţelei
05:05
based on the amount of protein present.
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în funcţie de cantitea de proteinǎ prezentă.
05:08
However, there's a catch.
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Totuși, existǎ un dezavantaj.
05:10
These networks of carbon nanotubes are extremely flimsy,
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Reţelele de carbon sunt foarte fragile,
05:13
and since they're so delicate, they need to be supported.
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din cauza asta au nevoie de un suport.
05:17
So that's why I chose to use paper.
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De asta am ales să folosesc hârtia.
05:19
Making a cancer sensor out of paper
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Confecţionarea unui detector de cancer din hârtie
05:21
is about as simple as making chocolate chip cookies,
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e la fel de simplu ca și coptul fursecurilor cu ciocolatǎ,
05:23
which I love.
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care îmi plac mult.
05:27
You start with some water, pour in some nanotubes,
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Iei apǎ, adaugi nanotuburi,
05:30
add antibodies, mix it up,
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plus anticorpi, amesteci bine,
05:33
take some paper, dip it, dry it,
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scufunzi o bucǎţicǎ de hârtie, o usuci,
05:35
and you can detect cancer.
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şi detectezi cancerul.
05:38
(Applause)
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(Aplauze)
05:45
Then, suddenly, a thought occurred
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Apoi deodatǎ, un gând
05:48
that kind of put a blemish on my amazing plan here.
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mi-a umbrit planul meu uimitor.
05:53
I can't really do cancer research
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Nu se cuvine sǎ investighez cancerul
05:54
on my kitchen countertop.
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pe masa din bucǎtǎrie.
05:56
My mom wouldn't really like that.
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Mamei nu i-ar plăcea deloc.
05:58
So instead, I decided to go for a lab.
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Am decis sǎ caut un laborator.
06:01
So I typed up a budget, a materials list,
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Am fǎcut o listǎ cu preţuri, materiale,
06:03
a timeline, and a procedure,
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timpul necesar, metodologie,
06:06
and I emailed it to 200 different professors
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și am trimis emailuri la 200 de profesori
06:08
at Johns Hopkins University
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de la Universitatea John Hopkins
06:10
and the National Institutes of Health,
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şi la Institutul Naţional al Sǎnǎtǎţii,
06:12
essentially anyone that had anything to do with pancreatic cancer.
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adică tuturor celor implicaţi în cercetarea cancerului de pancreas.
06:15
And I sat back waiting for these positive emails to be pouring in,
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Mă așteptam la un duium de emailuri încurajatoare,
06:18
saying, "You're a genius!
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care sǎ declare: „Ești genial!"
06:19
You're going to save us all!"
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„O sǎ ne salvezi pe toţi!"
06:21
And — (Laughter)
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(Râsete)
06:25
Then reality took hold,
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În schimb m-a întâmpinat realitatea
06:26
and over the course of a month,
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şi pe parcursul unei luni întregi
06:29
I got 199 rejections out of those 200 emails.
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am fost refuzat în 199 din cele 200 de emailuri trimise.
06:33
One professor even went through my entire procedure,
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Un profesor chiar a studiat propunerea mea,
06:36
painstakingly -- I'm not really sure where he got all this time --
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în detaliu – nu ştiu cum a găsit atâta timp –
06:39
and he went through and said why each and every step
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şi mi-a explicat de ce fiecare din etapele metodei mele
06:43
was like the worst mistake I could ever make.
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era cea mai mare greşealǎ posibilǎ.
06:46
Clearly, the professors did not have as high
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Evident profesorii nu erau la fel de încântaţi
06:48
of an opinion of my work as I did.
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de munca mea pe cât eram eu însumi.
06:51
However, there was a silver lining.
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Cu toate astea, a apǎrut ceva la orizont.
06:54
One professor said, "Maybe I might be able to help you, kid."
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Unul dintre profesori a spus:
„Poate te-aş putea ajuta, tinere".
„Poate te-aş putea ajuta, tinere".
06:57
So I went in that direction.
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Şi am plecat în aceastǎ direcţie.
06:59
(Laughter)
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(Râsete)
07:03
As you can never say no to a kid.
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Nu poți spune „nu” unui copil.
07:06
And so then, three months later,
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Aşadar, dupǎ trei luni,
07:08
I finally nailed down a harsh deadline with this guy,
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am reușit în final sǎ cǎdem de acord asupra unui plan,
07:11
and I get into his lab,
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am ajuns la laborator,
07:12
I get all excited, and then I sit down,
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cu mare nerǎbdare, am luat loc pe scaun,
07:15
I start opening my mouth and talking,
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am deschis gura şi am început sǎ vorbesc.
07:16
and five seconds later he calls in another Ph.D.
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Cinci secunde mai târziu cheamă un alt doctor în științe.
07:19
Ph.D.'s just flock into this little room,
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Alţii cercetători se înghesuie în laborator,
07:23
and they're just firing these questions at me,
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şi încep sǎ mǎ interogheze.
07:25
and by the end, I kind of felt like I was in a clown car.
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Mă cam simţeam ca la circ.
07:28
There were 20 Ph.D.'s plus me and the professor
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Erau 20 de doctori, plus eu şi profesorul,
07:29
crammed into this tiny office space
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înghesuiţi într-un mic birou,
07:32
with them firing these rapid-fire questions at me,
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cu toţii punând întrebare dupǎ întrebare,
07:35
trying to sink my procedure.
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încercând sǎ-mi anuleze metoda.
07:37
How unlikely is that? I mean, pshhh.
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Cine se aştepta la aşa ceva...?!
07:40
(Laughter)
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(Râsete)
07:44
However, subjecting myself to that interrogation,
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Cu toate astea, trecând cu bine de interogare,
07:47
I answered all of their questions,
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şi rǎspunzând la toate întrebǎrile –
07:48
and I guessed on quite a few but I got them right,
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unele le-am inventat, dar le-am nimerit –
07:50
and I finally landed the lab space I needed.
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am obținut în final locul în laborator
de care aveam nevoie.
de care aveam nevoie.
07:55
But it was shortly afterwards that I discovered
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Dar am descoperit ulterior cǎ
07:57
my once brilliant procedure
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metoda, iniţial considerată genialǎ,
07:59
had something like a million holes in it,
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avea un milion de fisuri.
08:01
and over the course of seven months,
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Pe parcursul urmǎtoarelor şapte luni
08:03
I painstakingly filled each and every one of those holes.
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am cârpit conștiincios toate fisurile.
08:06
The result? One small paper sensor
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Rezultatul? Un mic senzor din hârtie
08:09
that costs three cents and takes five minutes to run.
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care costǎ trei cenţi și ia cinci minute să testezi.
08:12
This makes it 168 times faster,
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Asta înseamnǎ de 168 de ori mai rapid,
08:16
over 26,000 times less expensive,
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de 26.000 de ori mai ieftin,
08:19
and over 400 times more sensitive
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şi de 400 de ori mai precis
08:21
than our current standard for pancreatic cancer detection.
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decât standardul curent pentru detectarea cancerului pancreatic.
08:24
(Applause)
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(Aplauze)
08:34
One of the best parts of the sensor, though,
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Cea mai mare realizare a testului însǎ
08:36
is that it has close to 100 percent accuracy,
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e precizia de aproape 100%,
08:39
and can detect the cancer in the earliest stages
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semnaleazǎ prezenţa cancerului şi în stadiul iniţial
08:41
when someone has close to 100 percent chance of survival.
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când pacientul are aproape 100% şanse de supravieţuire.
08:45
And so in the next two to five years,
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Aşadar în urmǎtorii doi pânǎ la cinci ani,
08:47
this sensor could potentially lift for pancreatic cancer survival rates
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testul ar putea îmbunǎtǎţi şansele de supravieţuire în cazurile de cancer pancreatic
08:50
from a dismal 5.5 percent
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de la procentul minuscul de 5,5%
08:52
to close to 100 percent,
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pânǎ la aproape 100%
08:54
and it would do similar for ovarian and lung cancer.
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și ar reduce similar şi în cazurile de cancer ovarian și pulmonar.
08:57
But it wouldn't stop there.
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Dar asta nu e tot.
09:00
By switching out that antibody,
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Dacǎ înlocuim anticorpul,
09:01
you can look at a different protein,
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putem investiga o altǎ proteinǎ,
09:03
thus, a different disease,
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prin urmare o altǎ boalǎ,
09:05
potentially any disease in the entire world.
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poate chiar orice boalǎ din lume.
09:08
So that ranges from heart disease
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De la boli cardiace,
09:10
to malaria, HIV, AIDS,
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la malarie, SIDA,
09:13
as well as other forms of cancer -- anything.
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alte forme de cancer – absolut orice.
09:16
And so hopefully one day
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Să sperăm cǎ într-o zi
09:18
we can all have that one extra uncle,
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vom putea salva un unchi,
09:20
that one mother, that one brother, sister,
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o mamǎ, un frate, o soră,
09:23
we can have that one more family member to love,
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un membru drag al familiei,
09:26
and that our hearts will be rid of that one disease burden
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şi cǎ vom fi scutiţi de povara grea
09:31
that comes from pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancer,
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cauzatǎ de cancerul pancreatic, ovarian sau pulmonar,
09:34
and potentially any disease,
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şi poate oricare altă boalǎ,
09:36
that through the Internet anything is possible.
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şi poate cu ajutorul internetului orice e posibil.
09:39
Theories can be shared,
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Ideile pot fi împǎrtǎşite,
09:40
and you don't have to be a professor
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şi nu trebuie sǎ fii profesor
09:42
with multiple degrees to have your ideas valued.
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cu nenumǎrate diplome ca sǎ îţi fie apreciate ideile.
09:45
It's a neutral space,
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E un spaţiu neutru,
09:46
where what you look like, age or gender,
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unde aspectul fizic, vârsta sau sexul,
09:49
it doesn't matter.
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nu au importanţǎ.
09:50
It's just your ideas that count.
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Ceea ce contează cu adevarat sunt ideile.
09:52
For me, it's all about looking at the Internet
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Dupǎ mine, secretul e sǎ privim internetul
09:55
in an entirely new way
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dintr-un unghi cu totul nou
09:57
to realize that there's so much more to it
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ca sǎ realizăm cǎ oferǎ mult mai mult
09:59
than just posting duck-face pictures of yourself online.
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decât un loc pentru poze cu strâmbături.
10:04
You could be changing the world.
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Am putea schimba lumea.
10:08
So if a 15-year-old
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Dacǎ un tânăr de 15 ani
10:10
who didn't even know what a pancreas was
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care nici nu ştia ce e un acela pancreas
10:13
could find a new way to detect pancreatic cancer,
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poate descoperi o modalitate nouǎ de a detecta cancerul pancreatic,
10:16
just imagine what you could do.
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imaginează-ți cum ai putea contribui chiar tu.
10:19
Thank you.
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Vǎ mulţumesc.
10:20
(Applause)
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(Aplauze)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jack Andraka - Cancer detector inventorA paper on carbon nanotubes, a biology lecture on antibodies and a flash of insight led 15-year-old Jack Andraka to design a cheaper, more sensitive cancer detector.
Why you should listen
After Andraka’s proposal to build and test his idea for a pancreatic cancer detector was rejected from 199 labs, the teen landed at Johns Hopkins. There, he built his device using inexpensive strips of filter paper, carbon nanotubes and antibodies sensitive to mesothelin, a protein found in high levels in people with pancreatic cancer. When dipped in blood or urine, the mesothelin adheres to these antibodies and is detectable by predictable changes in the nanotubes’ electrical conductivity.
In preliminary tests, Andraka’s invention has shown 100 percent accuracy. It also finds cancers earlier than current methods, costs a mere 3 cents and earned the high schooler the 2012 Intel Science Fair grand prize.
Jack Andraka | Speaker | TED.com