article_snippet.sent: Jack Andraka with Matthew Lysiak is just 18, yet Jack Andraka with Matthew Lysiak newly-published memoir carries a blurb from Barack Obama. '
article_snippet.sent: Jack's short life has been packed with incident, but there was little in Jack background to suggest that Jack would become a teenage celebrity.
article_snippet.sent: Jack was born in 1997 and grew up in suburban Maryland with Jack elder brother, Luke, and parents, Jane, a nurse, and Steve, a civil engineer.
article_snippet.sent: The Andrakas encouraged The Andrakas boys to think about how the world worked: school runs were fiercely competitive as Jack and Luke tried to solve science questions fired at Jack and Luke by Jack and Luke mother.
article_snippet.sent: At school, Jack won prizes for science projects, but was ostracised as a geek and viciously bullied when Jack came out as gay, aged 13.
article_snippet.sent: Deeply depressed, Jack made an unsuccessful suicide attempt.
article_snippet.sent: At summer camp, Jack met a sympathetic counsellor, and began to channel Jack grief into the science that would make Jack a star.
article_snippet.sent: Jack was interviewed by CNN and the BBC, and had to fit school assignments around invitations to meet world leaders and give TED talks.
article_snippet.sent: Jack was photographed with Bill and Hillary Clinton (who told Jack that politics was just like the film, Mean Girls).
article_snippet.sent: There was an audience with the Pope, Jack was hugged by Michelle Obama
article_snippet.sent: Teen scientist and inventor Jack Andraka attends the Global Citizen Festival - The Action Summit 2014 .
highlights_snippet.sent: Jack Andraka, now 18, became depressed when a close family friend died .
  