Thirteen-year-old Rishab Jain has been named as America’s Top Young Scientist in the 2018 Young Scientist Challenge, for his work in improving pancreatic cancer treatment. Jain created an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to accurately locate and track the pancreas in real-time during MRI-guided radiotherapy.

“Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal and difficult to treat disease, so I created an invention to improve one of the treatment options, which is radiotherapy,” says Jain, from Stoller Middle School in Portland, OR. “My tool PCDLS [pancreatic cancer deep learning system] uses artificial intelligence to help track the pancreas and improve some of the treatment options.”

An inherent challenge of radiation treatment for pancreatic cancer is accurately targeting the pancreas, which is often obscured by the stomach or other nearby organs, making it difficult to locate. In addition, breathing and other anatomical changes may cause the pancreas to move around in the abdominal area. As a result, radiotherapy can inadvertently target healthy tissue.

“I’ve developed a tool that uses semantic segmentation and convolutional neural networks to accurately locate where the pancreas is,” Jain explains. He developed and tested his PCDLS algorithm using images of the human digestive system, and found that it could correctly detect the pancreas with 98.9% sensitivity.

“When I run the tool, the segmented pancreas is output instantaneously. I used various statistical techniques, such as the confusion matrix, ROC curve and box-and-whisker plots, to ensure my innovation gives highly accurate results,” says Jain. “With PCDLS, radiation doses for patients can be decreased, and with accurate treatments many lives can be saved. I’m really excited with the results.”

Competition day

Jain competed alongside nine other finalists during a live competition at the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, MN. During the summer, the finalists worked with 3M scientists to develop their innovations as part of a unique mentorship program. Jain was paired with Döne Demirgöz, a product development and research expert who takes the products developed in 3M labs and brings them to the marketplace.

The finalists presented their inventions to an esteemed panel of scientists and leaders from Discovery Education and 3M. They also competed in two other challenges that combined multiple 3M technologies to solve a real-world problem.

“Inspiring millions of students over the past decade to develop new innovations and solutions that solve real-world problems, the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge has encouraged kids to gain valuable critical-thinking and solution-seeking skills for life,” says Lori McFarling from Discovery Education. “Congratulations on our newest Top Young Scientist Rishab and all 2018 finalists on their incredible efforts.”