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[Teen Narrator] 20 Thiel winners.

All under age 20.

$100,00 to drop out of school and pursue our dream.

This is Teen Technorati.

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My name Thomas Hunt.

I'm 17-years-old and I'm working to cure cancer.

In total, I walk about five miles a day

in order to get to Sens Research Foundation,

which is where I do the majority of my research.

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I have a grandfather who has skin cancer right now.

My grandfather is very excited to hear about my research.

In fact, my grandpa actually gave me my first microscope.

When Thomas was, I think he was a freshman

in high school, 13 years old,

he was doing a science fair project.

He wanted to look at genetically modified corn.

And he didn't have the skills, he didn't have

the lab equipment that was needed for this.

I volunteered our researchers for that project.

After he did his project, he found himself

incredibly interested in science,

and he began volunteering in our lab,

at the age of 13, our youngest volunteer to date.

This, we call it the negative 80.

It's where we store cells, or tissues, or whatever

really needs to be kept at really cold temperatures.

So, this is called a sterile enclosure.

Put this flap up.

This allows us to work with cancer cell lines

without being infected with bacteria.

This is the Biomek 2000.

I began working with this model

at a company called Ichor Therapeutics

and I'd been looking around for one and I happened

to talk about my research to a few friends,

who happened to have one that they weren't using,

and basically gave it to me for my research,

as my own personal Biomek for really no charge at all.

So, I think it was just really awesome

and I've gotten really excited to begin immediately

programming assays into it.

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Thomas is an excellent researcher

and, really, that's why he fits in so well here.

We are very fortunate that we've been able to recruit

extremely talented researchers.

Thomas, hello!

Hey Aubrey, how are you doing?

I'm doing well.

Aubrey's been a really big mentor for me

for the past few years.

A fantastic guy who's been incredibly kind,

in helping me, and teaching me about cancer,

teaching me about how lab works, and allowing me

to use Sens to really do my research.

There aren't very many

biotech fellows, are there, this year?

Not as much, no.

Right, yeah, so I'm really pleased that

we're able to, that you were able to impress them as much

as you did, apparently.

Thank you.

So, Thomas has been working here

at the Sens Research Foundation Lab for about three years.

He's a wonderful person, a great prodigy, obviously.

When he joined the lab he was only 13 years old,

and he's made significant contributions to various

projects, especially the one that he's been working

on for the past couple of years, the project to find

how some cancers manage to survive and grow

indefinitely, even though they don't turn on this

key enzyme Telomerase.

He is really exceptional in that he's not exceptional.

In other words, in that he's not here to make up the weight,

he actually makes a proper contribution

just like people twice his age.

They currently have six drugs that

I'm planning on testing.

And I'm planning, now that I have funding, to begin,

being able to begin actual tests

and hopefully getting some results.

The chemotherapy is kind of a, it's a disgusting

manner of trying to fight cancer.

I mean, you're killing cancer, but at the same time

the person's absolutely suffering the entire process.

The tests that I have been doing, I'm beginning

to actually test actual drugs that I'm interested in.

My only concern is the results could be very erratic.

I think 100,000 is a really great start, and it

will be able to help me a lot, however, I hope

to have planned, as my project goes on, to get funding

from outside sources as well.

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Thank you.

I believe, very strongly, that you need to pursue

exactly what you're interested immediately,

and I try to emphasize that in my project,

where I try to get the results now,

because cancer's not going to wait another 10 years.

[Teen Narrator] Tune in for the next episode

of Teen Technorati, for our biggest event of the summer,

the Thiel Summit.

And be sure to subscribe to the Wired channel.

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