It used to be that doctors either did breast biopsies either with needles while you were awake, or surgically while you were sleeping. But a high school junior may put an end to these painful ways to check a breast for cancer using artificial neural networks (ANN).
Seventeen-year-old Brittany Wenger of Sarasota, Fla. has reportedly created a computer brain that can diagnose breast cancer with 99 percent sensitivity to cancer cells.
Wenger wrote a non-invasive breast cancer-diagnosing app based on an artificial neural network, a computer program whose structure mimics the way brain cells connect with one another. It could make cancer detection easier, and cheaper.
A high school senior, Wenger was chosen from among 5,000 students from more than 100 countries to receive a $50,000 Google scholarship, the grand prize, for her work.
Like other artificial intelligence programs, artificial neural networks "learn" what to do by analyzing examples they're given and they perform better if they get more examples. In addition, they're able to detect patterns in data that are too complex for human brains or other types of programs to analyze.
Techopedia.com explains that these ANNs, or computational models, are based on the structure and functions of biological neural networks.
A story at livescience.com says that Wenger wanted to get her computer brains to work on breast cancer “because the least invasive diagnostic test for the disease, called fine needle aspirate, is also the least certain one.” (I’m living proof – every needle biopsy was followed by a surgical procedure).
Often, as in my case, if results aren't clear, patients need to undergo a second biopsy with a bigger needle or even surgery. Wenger wanted to boost the less-invasive test's success rates, according to the story.
Heather Kelly at CNN notes that organizers of the online science fair received thousands of entries from 100 countries, including India, Ukraine, Malta and Swaziland. Fifteen finalists were selected by Google and, “at a final gala in an airplane hangar in Palo Alto,” announced the winners in three age categories, along with a grand-prize winner.
Though Wenger was undoubtedly one of the brightest, she wasn’t the only winner. Another student, Jonah Kohn, 14, won first place in his age group for a project that helps people with hearing loss still enjoy music by experiencing it through vibrations, according to CNN.
Kelly also reveals that a team of three 15- and 16-year-olds from Spain took home a trophy (made entirely out of Legos, my son is so jealous!) for their depiction of the microscopic creatures that thrive in fresh water.
And two 15-year-old young men from Swaziland used hydroponic techniques to help subsistence farmers in their homeland overcome a devastating food shortage.
Edited by
Braden Becker
