My Story
Hi, I’m Andrei, and I’m a high school senior who believes that combining technology with medical research can help solve problems that have puzzled us for years.
My journey with computers started early. Like many kids, I began with Scratch, but I quickly moved on to Python and Java. I remember asking my dad to buy me a Raspberry Pi – this tiny computer that fascinated me because everything was integrated into a hand-sized board. I spent countless hours building projects with it, including a smart mirror that I created back in 7th or 8th grade.
In 8th grade, I took the AP Computer Science Principles exam. My teacher wasn’t sure I was ready, but I was determined. After convincing him (and having my mom call to get the registration code), I took the exam and scored the maximum. It wasn’t particularly difficult since I already knew most of the material.
Getting into Montgomery Blair High School’s Magnet STEM Program was a turning point. Only 100 students are selected from all of Montgomery County, and being surrounded by peers who share your passion for STEM really pushes everyone to explore new frontiers like AI and advanced computer science.
But the moment that truly changed my perspective came about three years ago. I had been experiencing episodes where food would get stuck in my throat – something that started as occasional discomfort but gradually became impossible to ignore. After visits to multiple doctors and an endoscopy, I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE), a chronic inflammatory condition of the esophagus.
Sitting in the hospital with my mom, I asked my doctor all the questions you’d expect:
- What causes this?
- How do we treat it?
- Will it get better?
The answers were all variations of “We don’t know.” That conversation was both shocking and enlightening. Here I was, facing a condition that medical science couldn’t fully explain or effectively treat.
Initially, I felt frustrated and helpless. But that feeling gradually transformed into something else – determination. Every medical breakthrough exists because someone decided to search for answers. Cures don’t appear by chance; they’re the result of people pushing boundaries to solve the unsolvable.
Around the same time, I landed an internship at a startup focused on using AI to enhance human interactions. Spending that summer reading research papers and exploring AI’s potential opened my eyes to something extraordinary: AI was transforming how we approach complex, unsolved problems. I began to see connections between AI’s ability to find patterns and answer questions that humans simply couldn’t tackle alone.
That’s when it clicked. I wasn’t just a patient dealing with an uncommon disease – I was someone uniquely positioned to make a difference. My personal experience had led me to this intersection where AI and medical research collide. While humans might not yet have all the answers about EoE, AI could help us find them.
This realization didn’t just change how I viewed my diagnosis; it shaped my entire approach to learning and research. I started the Code4Cure initiative, began research internships at the Broad Institute and Johns Hopkins University, and take AI classes to learn the tools. I founded the AI/ML Club at my school to share these concepts with my peers.
My story isn’t about overcoming adversity – it’s about recognizing opportunity. Sometimes the challenges we face personally can become the driving force behind our contributions to the world. I believe that combining my passion for AI with my experience as an EoE patient puts me in a unique position to help advance medical research and potentially contribute to finding treatments that could help many others.
Whether it’s developing machine learning models to predict cytokine responses, working on genetic analysis for EoE, or advocating for allergen transparency in restaurants, each project builds toward a larger goal: using technology to solve real-world medical challenges.
This journey is just beginning, and I’m excited to see where it leads.