Brittany Wenger, 17, Wins Google Science Fair Grand Prize For Breast Cancer Diagnosis App

https://sites.google.com/a/googlesciencefair.com/science-fair-2012-project-64a91af142a459cfb486ed5cb05f803b2eb41354-1333130785-87/home

Project Summary

Global Neural Network Cloud Service for Breast Cancer Global Neural Network Cloud Service for Breast Cancer http://cloud4cancer.appspot.com Leveraging the computing power of the cloud to assist with medical diagnosis can become an effective tool for doctors to provide more consistent and reliable care.  Artificial neural networks detect patterns too complex to be recognized by humans and can be applied to breast mass malignancy classification when evaluating Fine Needle Aspirates (FNAs).  This project teaches the cloud how to diagnose breast cancer by implementing a custom-crafted neural network that consumes FNA data collected by the University of Wisconsin to answer the question – is a mass malignant or benign? Medical usage demands neural networks achieve accuracy with their diagnosis and reduce malignant false negatives. Building on data collected by the University of Wisconsin in the early 1990s, this project first evaluates three modern commercial neural network implementations. Information regarding potential indicators of breast cancer is quantified in the dataset; specifically, clump thickness, single epithelial cell size, bare nuclei, mitoses, and five other attributes. Each network accepts this input to optimize its hidden nodes and is tested with ten trials. With each trial, a randomly selected 10% of the dataset is used to assess the predictive power of the constructed neural network. These commercially created neural networks serve as a control group. Development of a custom neural network weights malignant false negatives and allows for the identification of inconclusive samples (capacities not available in commercial products.)  Additionally, more samples are needed to improve the predictive capability of the network; therefore, the network has been published in the cloud, allowing for global submissions and benefit.  The cloud service is hosted in the Google App Engine. The successfully implemented custom network is tested with 6,800 trials.  To assure maximum training, each sample is run through ten trials evaluated by different networks trained against all other samples.  The custom neural network achieved predictive success of 97.4% with 99.1% sensitivity to malignancy – substantially better than the evaluated commercial products.  Out of the commercial products, two experienced consistent success while the third experienced erratic success. The sensitivity to malignancy for the custom network was 5% higher than the best commercial network’s sensitivity. This experiment demonstrates modern neural networks can handle outliers and work with unmodified datasets to identify patterns. In addition, when all data is used for training, the custom network achieves 100% success with only 4 inconclusive samples, proving the network is more effective with more samples.  Additionally, 7.6 million trials were run using different training sample sizes to demonstrate the sensitivity and predictive success improves as the network receives more training samples. The Global Neural Network Cloud Service for Breast Cancer may be ready to diagnose actual patients – more global participation is required to confirm the findings and increase the predictive success on blind samples. An avid student, volunteer, athlete, and researcher, I am driven to learn and understand. I have never outgrown the “why” phase. I question everything, and it wasn’t until I was introduced to science that I found answers -- and, more questions. My elementary school experiences developed my passion for experimentation. My enthusiasm for science continues to blossom. Helping find the cure to cancer is a goal of mine. I have experienced the pain of family members inflicted with the disease and have witnessed the anguish in Georgetown's pediatric cancer ward. Going forward, I seek to learn as much as I can in the computer science and medical fields to help achieve this goal. Although only a high school junior, I am top in my class and participate in the most rigorous courses offered at my school. I expect to major in computer science when I attend college and continue to medical school. WWSB ABC 7 Interview   Awards do not define me; however, they validate my scientific research.  With each year, my research increases in complexity and has more potential to have positive benefit on mankind.  When I was presented with the naming of minor planet 25333 by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, I was in disbelief; however, getting recognized by some of the top world scientists drives me to work harder.  Together, we can solve extraordinary challenges. Winning the Google Science Fair and interacting with the top scientists at Google would be an awe-inspiring opportunity for me.