of complications with my ear but I
remember the surgeon explaining to me
about a prosthesis that would restore my
hearing given the news I wasn’t worried
about the complications of the surgery
but I was fascinated by the science
behind it and thinking back to this
experience I wanted to start a research
project with the hopes that one day I
could contribute to society much the
same way these doctors surgeons and
scientists are helping people on a daily
basis by combining science and
technology with medicine I was 14 years
old and I saw an awareness campaign for
outside Miss disease at the time I
didn’t know what the disease was so I
wanted to find out about it Alzheimer’s
disease affects over 47 million people
worldwide but there exists no drugs to
stop or even slow down the progression
of this disease more than that less than
50% of patients receive a diagnosis
within their lifetime so I wanted to do
something about this lack of an
effective diagnostic system and I was
curious as to whether I could find a
better solution
so I read medical journals and met with
professors to learn about the
biochemistry of the disease so that I
could be a part of the fight against it
when I was 15 years old I created a
complex which was an antibody combined
with a nanoparticle that could enter the
brain target a toxic protein and then
show up on an MRI and near-infrared scan
the complex had diagnostic properties
but it also had therapeutic properties
by preventing neural damage and
increasing cellular viability
something I wasn’t expecting doing this
entire research was incredible and
invigorating but I didn’t do it for
grades or for the sake of my curriculum
but instead out of curiosity sure it was
difficult getting professors to take me
seriously at first but the ideas
themselves were up to me and they were
only limited by my imagination I think
what’s so great about science is it’s so
diverse but it still remains so insolent
some of the core concepts I was using
within my Alzheimer’s research could
easily be translated into cancer
research
when I was working without signers there
was an adjacent laboratory who were
working with cancer and I was curious as
to what they were doing
so I wants to find out more I created a
new method to treat a particular form of
breast cancer cancer is a cruel and
complex disease but triple negative
breast cancer isn’t responsive too many
drugs because it lacks the receptors
upon which most drugs work on however
last year another research team found
out that triple negative breast cancer
comes from two different types of cells
one cell line which is responsive to
most other drugs and another cell line
that isn’t responsive too many drugs at
all
so creating new drugs to treat this
unresponsive form of cancer has been a
challenge so I wanted to do something
different I wanted to see whether I
could change the unresponsive form of
triple negative breast cancer into a
form of cancer we can treat with
existing drugs in essence I didn’t
change the drug I changed the cancer
since then I’ve been exploring whether
my Alzheimer’s research could be applied
to other diseases like Parkinson’s
disease Huntington’s disease and ALS
and I’m curious as to whether the
concept of changing the cancer and not
the drug could be applied to other forms
of cancer not only breast cancer a lot
of people think that just because I do
this research I’m somehow different to
friends my friends enjoy playing sport
so do I my friends also enjoy traveling
the world so do I did you guys see any
differences well the answer was no and
that’s because there isn’t any I like
doing things other sixteen-year-olds
like to do but I also wanted to do
something that fascinated me and for me
that happened to be neuroscience I as
well as many other students across the
world may have promising ideas but what
we don’t have are the facilities or
resources required to execute them I had
to email 54 different laboratories
before I got one positive response
months later I had no prior experience
with research and whilst that’s in
itself is a significant drawback I think
it possesses an understated significance
as inexperienced students we don’t know
what’s possible or what’s impossible so
we’re not afraid of exploring new ideas
and challenging preconceptions in the
hopes of finding something new curiosity
was essential for me to have become
interested in my research and started
doing what I like doing but this is the
easy part
right because curiosity is present
within each and every one of us when
we’re all young we’ve always asked
questions and wondered about our
surroundings
my dad enjoys calling me annoying and he
loves to tell me to go away because I
would irritate him with a seemingly
endless number of questions but it goes
to demonstrate an intrinsic sense of
inquisitiveness curiosity is also
something that cannot be taken away
there are 160 million teenagers in India
and over 1.2 billion teenagers across
the world and if society listens to
those teenagers and allowed us to
explore our interests imagine what we
could accomplish and how much we could
change the world ladies and gentlemen
there are 1.2 billion
untapped teenage minds full of curiosity
and potentially world-changing ideas and
we’re ready to share our ideas as long
as you guys are ready to give us the
chance thank you [Applause]