Globally, cancer is the second leading cause of death and was responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2015. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly one in six deaths is due to cancer.
Prathik Naidu, an Indian-American teen, who recently secured the seventh place in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, also known as the Junior Nobel Prize, is getting to the crux of the matter with the structure of the genes behind cancer.
He was one of the 40 finalists at the competition and even received a $70,000 award. He did so for his creation of a new machine learning software to study 3D interactions of the human genome in cancer.
“After taking a biology class, I became interested in the fundamental aspects of how genes can be activated or deactivated, which impacts the progression of cancer. Even after decades of research on the genetics behind cancer, there’s still a lot more work to be done in this area and I wanted to see if I can help answer some interesting questions in the field,” says Prathik.
Explaining further, he says, “I have a fast and easy-to-use tool, called DNALoopR that can rapidly analyse the three-dimensional interactions of the cancer genome and helps discover new biological patterns. The software can help scientists find new ways of reactivating genes that could help stop the growth of cancer cells and also lead to new types of genetic-based treatments that are more targeted than conventional methods.”
Since Prathik’s research was computationally oriented, he focused on learning about the math, statistics, and algorithms involved that were useful in creating the software.
“It was definitely a change from the previous projects I’ve worked on which involved just repurposing the tools already available,” says the 17-year-old maverick, whose biggest inspiration is Pardis Sabeti, a researcher at Harvard and one of the leading scientists that helped deal with the Ebola outbreak.
Prathik has roots in Chitoor and usually tries to come to India once a year, despite busy summers with projects and other programmes. “Most of my relatives live in Bengaluru, but I have visited Hyderabad once and really liked the city,” he quips.
Outside of scientific research, Prathik also enjoys public forum debate and is even the captain of his school’s team. He loves playing basketball and hiking, and is also learning Latin.
“In the next five years, I hope to be working at a pharmaceutical company or biotechnology start-up to help manage and develop cutting-edge medical technology,” he concludes.
