You probably know the common symptoms of a heart attack: chest and arm pain, shortness of breath and fatigue. But there's another kind that's just as deadly and harder to detect because the symptoms are silent. In this quick TED talk (go.ted.com/akashmanoj), 17-year-old inventor Akash Manoj shares the device he's developed to stop this silent killer: a noninvasive, inexpensive, wearable patch that alerts patients during a critical moment that could mean the difference between life and death.

Akash Manoj lost his grandfather due to a silent heart attack when he was thirteen. Silent heart attacks strike at-risk patients who are affected by nerve damage. Unlike most teenagers, inspired by the intricacies of the problem, Manoj translated his emotions into social motivation and, eventually, into action. At the end of three years of research and experiments funded by the Government of India at various labs across India, including SRISTI-BIRAC, he developed a novel technique that can non-invasively detect and alert at-risk patients of a potential asymptomatic heart-attack. His method involves transcutaneously isolating, identifying, spectroscopically analyzing, and sensing elevation in the levels of a cardiac biomarker called h-FABP in realtime -- a process that significantly establishes a path to preventative cardiovascular healthcare. 

Akash Manoj is currently working on a med-tech start-up that he's recently launched called Cardioptre, which aims to deliver his research for public use. The website is still under development, but the long-term goal of this start-up is to have his research transformed into a usable and affordable device for public use, and he intends to continue to work on this research during and after his time at college.

He needs your help to continue his research and make his innovation a reality. Help Akash save lives through his venture 'Cardioptre'. Someday even you could benefit from it.