3 ms·

Every time an ISEF article pops up, I always sigh out loud and begin a diatribe [1] about why the winner (invariably in medicine or biology) and the title (inva

Every time an ISEF article pops up, I always sigh out loud and begin a diatribe [1] about why the winner (invariably in medicine or biology) and the title (invariably "teenager cures XYZ") is misleading. To my surprise, it looks like this guy actually did a lot of the research on his own. At the very least, it appears the ideas was authentically his own, and then he enlisted the help of a lab to accomplish it. [1] http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3329605 http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3329605 Edit: Because HN is killing old permalinks: http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3328995 http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3328995

michaelhoffman 14y ago
He applied techniques that had been used on breast cancer (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21836232 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21836232) and prostate cancer (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19481922 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19481922) to pancreatic cancer. The implementation is more impressive than what the vast majority of teenagers or even undergraduates are capable of, but the idea certainly isn't novel.
- polyfractal 14y ago
  Sure sure, I agree with your points. But usually these ISEF winners are even further removed from "novel" ideas - they are literally placed into projects that grads/post-docs are already working on. Effectively, they become another pair of hands on a project that is well outside their intellectual input. It looks like this guy synthesized his own idea rather than piggybacking off the work of another, partially completed project (which is usually the norm for ISEF winners)
  - michaelhoffman 14y ago
    Agreed, that is what it looks like.
scott_s 14y ago
Who runs hackerne.ws? I've never seen that URL before. Your post loads just fine off of the standard URL: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3328995 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3328995 (Yes, it failed to load for me under the .ws URL.)
- polyfractal 14y ago
  Interesting, and I'm not sure. I just googled my username and "ISEF", knowing it would probably come up. The hackerne.ws link was first that I found...and then I just assumed the permalinks didn't work.

michaelhoffman 14y ago

He applied techniques that had been used on breast cancer (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21836232 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21836232) and prostate cancer (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19481922 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19481922) to pancreatic cancer. The implementation is more impressive than what the vast majority of teenagers or even undergraduates are capable of, but the idea certainly isn't novel.

polyfractal 14y ago
Sure sure, I agree with your points. But usually these ISEF winners are even further removed from "novel" ideas - they are literally placed into projects that grads/post-docs are already working on. Effectively, they become another pair of hands on a project that is well outside their intellectual input. It looks like this guy synthesized his own idea rather than piggybacking off the work of another, partially completed project (which is usually the norm for ISEF winners)
- michaelhoffman 14y ago
  Agreed, that is what it looks like.

scott_s 14y ago

Who runs hackerne.ws? I've never seen that URL before. Your post loads just fine off of the standard URL: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3328995 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3328995 (Yes, it failed to load for me under the .ws URL.)

polyfractal 14y ago
Interesting, and I'm not sure. I just googled my username and "ISEF", knowing it would probably come up. The hackerne.ws link was first that I found...and then I just assumed the permalinks didn't work.