Describing herself as a “proud nerd,” Macinley Butson has always wanted to help people with her scientific inventions. Her story began as a child inventor when she designed a pair of sunglasses with an adjustable tint; as a teen, she’s moved into the realms of medical physics.
As a 16-year-old, Macinley became interested in helping breast cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment. The Australian teen from Wollongong, New South Wales, whose brother and father also work in medical physics, began researching the harmful side effects of radiation therapy; her father had piqued her interest in the subject during a discussion at the dinner table.
“This is an incredibly important and imperative treatment,” the teen added, “and I wanted to improve it to aid their outcomes however I could.”
Finding that medical journals were largely pitched beyond her academic understanding, Butson turned to YouTube for the information she needed. She learned how to read scientific journals, the characteristics of radiation therapy, and what exactly is involved in breast cancer treatment.
From there, a tenth-grade history lesson on the medieval era gave Butson her stroke-of-genius design idea: “scale maille” used in medieval armor provided the ideal platform for making a malleable, wearable protection for a woman’s breast out of interwoven metal chain links and scales.
The teen then moved onto the “testing phase,” trialing breast shields made from lead, aluminum, and copper; as of 2019, lead is the standard shield used in radiation around the world. However, to Butson’s surprise, copper came out on top in her experiments.
Copper was, in fact, 20 percent more effective at deflecting radiation than lead at the skin’s surface. Butson’s SMART Armor (Scale Maille for Radiation Therapy) was born.
When tested in a laboratory setting, Butson’s invention was able to reduce surface exposure to excess radiation on the contralateral breast (the breast not being treated) by up to 80 percent.
Butson’s breakthrough invention did not go unnoticed. The teen was named 2018 NSW Young Australian of the Year, as well as New Gen Innovator at the Women of Style Awards in 2019.
In terms of its clinical application, Butson explained that she was “willing to donate [SMART Armor] to hospitals who are willing to give it a go,” as of May 2019.
One of the teen’s favorite quotes, made famous by congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, is, “If not me, then who? If not now, then when?” Butson has decided that here and now is the time and place to do everything in her power to change the world for the better.
Butson herself hopes to contribute toward a cure for cancer “sometime soon.”
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