2 Louisville high school students win international award for new cancer detection machine

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A potential breakthrough in cancer detection is coming out of Louisville, and the inventors are only 17 years old.

Rishabh Ranjan and Gopal Tadinada have been best friends friends since they were 5 years old. They bonded over a shared a passion for STEM. The duPont Manual High School students were volunteering at the Brown Cancer Center a few years ago when they noticed that gastrointestinal cancer was being detected when it was too late for treatment to work, leaving doctors and families hopeless.

"A lot of the patients with pancreatic cancer were going directly into hospice or like dying all together," Tadinada said.

"It was very like heartbreaking for them to just say, I mean, there's nothing we can do, you know, they've just been detected too late and no treatment will really work that effectively right now," Ranjan said.

The existing screening process was image-based, making it expensive and uncomfortable. So, the pair decided to do something about it.

Rishabh Ranjan and Gopal Tadinada displaying their award at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. May 19, 2023. *(Photo courtesy of Keri Polevchak)*

They started the project two years ago when they were heading into their sophomore year of high school. They designed the machine to detect gastrointestinal cancers at 96% accuracy through a finger prick. The machine is portable and reusable. The prototype only cost about $300 to make.

The teenagers won th e Robert Horvitz Prize for Fundamental Research at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, earning them $15,000 in cash prizes.

It took many late nights, but Ranjan and Tadinada said they were proud to do important work alongside their best friend.

"It makes things a lot more fun," Ranjan said. "Neither of us probably would've been as productive or as accomplished if we weren't working together."

They said it can be hard for people to believe that two 17-year-olds are making breakthroughs in cancer detection.

"We did win this, but at the same time, I still don't want to do my laundry," Ranjan said.

They said their next step is filing a patent.