The X PRIZE Foundation is a non-profit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind.
The X PRIZE Foundation mission is to bring about “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity” through incentivized competition. It fosters high-profile competitions that motivate individuals, companies and organizations across all disciplines to develop innovative ideas and technologies that help solve the grand challenges that restrict humanity’s progress.
The most high-profile X PRIZE to date was the Ansari X PRIZE relating to spacecraft development awarded in 2004. This prize was intended to inspire research and development into technology for space exploration.
The first X PRIZE – the Ansari X PRIZE – was inspired by the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 prize offered in 1919 by French hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first nonstop flight between New York City and Paris. In 1927, underdog Charles Lindbergh won the prize in a modified single-engine Ryan aircraft called the Spirit of St. Louis. In total, nine teams spent $400,000 in pursuit of the Orteig Prize.
Jack Andraka is the 2012 Intel Science Fair grand prize winner. Andraka was awarded the Gordon E. Moore Award for his work in developing a new method for detecting pancreatic cancer.
Andraka won as a 15 year-old high school freshman at North County High School in Maryland. As part of his project he created a new diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer that is 28 times faster, 28 times less expensive and over 100 times more sensitive than the current diagnostic tests. The test is also effective for ovarian and lung cancer.
Officials at Intel have said that Andraka's method tests the level of mesothelin, a pancreatic cancer biomarker, in blood or urine, and his study resulted in more than 90 percent accuracy in detecting the presence of mesothelin. The dipstick-sensor method costs 3 cents and takes five minutes to administer.
Dr. Anirban Maitra, a professor in the Johns Hopkins University's department of pathology, gave Andraka use of his lab to craft his invention. Andraka's inspiration to create a faster and more efficient cancer test came out of the death of his uncle to pancreatic cancer.