A seven-year-old is capable of many things like doing chores around the house or the basics like learning to read. They let their imagination run wild and spend their days pretending the swing set is a pirate’s ship. Most seven-year-old children would even color outside the lines and wonder why the sky is blue and the grass is green.
Yes, at seven, you and I were also just developing our abilities to be logical.
But there was one seven years old who was like no other. He was walking and talking when he was only 10 months old and later was discovered to have an IQ of 146, the highest of any seven years old in India.
By now, you are wondering, ‘So what?’
Well, well before turning seven, this child prodigy was reading Shakespeare, science books and was fascinated with complex and abstract ideas revolving around ‘human physiology or cell regeneration’ and he loved the puzzle in trying to figure it out.
His name? Akrit Jaswal.
This led to Akrit Jaswal doing the unbelievable.
He successfully performed a surgery on an eight-year old girl, a year older than the surgeon himself, and thus, became an Internet sensation.
Akrit Jaswal on Oprah Winfrey’s Show
Akrit’s Jaswal First Surgery
In a nearby village, a toddler burned her hand and the burns were so severe that her fingers curled up and the skin on her fingers melted together. Due to her family’s poverty, she was never operated on and for years, the little girl’s hand was of no use.
By now, Akrit Jaswal had already earned a reputation in his village for being the medical genius and at the age of eight, her family sought out Akrit Jaswal to operate on their daughter. So they traveled over to Jaswal’s village for help.
After signing a waiver, Jaswal agreed to do the surgery free of charge. In the following weeks, his parents ordered surgical knives, camera equipment, and anesthesia for the occasion. On November 19, 2000, Jaswal performed his first surgery and separated the girl’s fingers for the first time after an hour-long operation.
Jaswal’s parents documented the surgery and uploaded the footage online. Within days, their son was an Internet sensation and a few months later, Oprah Winfrey interviewed Akrit Jaswal in one of her “Little Genius” segments.
Akrit Jaswal on Oprah Winfrey’s Show
His Ultimate Goal In Life?
Akrit Jaswal is focused on finding a cure for cancer and aids. He believes that his Oral Gene Therapy might be the scientific breakthrough researchers have been missing. Imperial College in London invited Akrit Jaswal to discuss his medical theories with Professor Mustafa Djamgoz and the consulting urological surgeon Anup Patel. Djamgoz and Patel were fascinated by Jaswal’s intelligence and believed that he had the potential to do great things.
However, the two professionals believe that Jaswal’s intelligence still needs guidance. According to the professionals, Jaswal’s medical theories are good ideas but the execution and application of Jaswal’s theories aren’t as simple as Jaswal believes just yet. Djamgoz and Patel understood that separating genes and breaking apart cells are easy in theory but from their years of experience in the field, they knew that the process takes time and requires impeccable accuracy.
However, to this day, Jaswal is still fine-tuning his theories and working on finding the cure for cancer at the Indian Institute for Technology at Kanpur.
During his interview at Imperial College, Akrit Jaswal explains why he’s so passionate about medicine and focused on finding a cure for cancer.
He said, “I’ve been going to hospitals since the age of six, so I have seen firsthand people suffering from pain. I get very sad, and so that’s the main motive of my passion about medicine, my passion about cancer.”
Sixteen years after performing his first surgery, Akrit Jaswal has not given up on his dreams. He is learning more about chemistry, botany, zoology, biology, and bioengineering in order to find a cure for cancer someday soon.
Early Life of Akrit Jaswal
Akrit Jaswal was born on April 23, 1993, in Nurpur, India. He could read and write at 10 months of age. His parents knew that from a young age that he possessed the ability to do great things and by the age of five, he started to focus on science. Jaswal was fascinated by medicine and how living systems operated on a daily basis.
Akrit Jaswal
When he was seven, hospitals in Nurpur would let him observe various surgeries. These privileges are usually granted to graduate students. However, the doctors at the local hospitals were excited to see a young boy passionate about studying medicine. Word spread quickly through the region about the child prodigy. People of all ages from toddlers to the elderly sought Jaswal’s advice, diagnosis and treatment on their ailments.
Akrit Jaswal’s Education
Although there is not much clarity on Jaswal’s early schooling but since his successful surgery, Oprah Winfrey and a number of medical societies have interviewed Akrit Jaswal after which he also became the youngest medical student in an Indian University.
He was twelve-years-old.
While he was in school, Indian officials tested his IQ. They found out that Jaswal’s 146 IQ ranked higher than any other twelve-year old boy in India. Three years later, he graduated with a science degree from Chandigarh College.
Then, at seventeen, Jaswal began his master’s degree in Chemistry. Currently, he is studying Bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur. Now, Jaswal is twenty-three years old and his passion and focus have not moved an inch. Through the years, he has become even more focused on his goals. He continues to work hard in school and continues his research to find a cure for cancer.
Akrit Jaswal’s Parent’s Support
When Jaswal was five-years old and expressed interest in studying medicine, his parents did everything they could to provide their son with the resources he needed to learn more about medicine. Growing up, Jaswal’s father brought his son many biology books. The books covered a variety of topics from anesthesia and surgical procedures to anatomy and physiology. Akrit Jaswal studied each book intently and his father described his son’s studying ability as “a photographic memory”.
Jaswal has a big heart and is truly a genius!
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