Out of the thousands of highly respectable scientists to walk the earth, my favorite is Sir Frederick Banting. Banting discovered something that arguably could be considered one of the biggest breakthroughs in medical history that give the chance for type 1 diabetics to live longer than a year, insulin. Although I am not diabetic, I know many people who are and rely on insulin daily just to live. Banting is one of my favorites because he inspires me that even though discovering a treatment or cure may seem impossible, it's quite possible.

Out of the thousands of phone calls a person will get in a lifetime, there are a select few that could change the direction of their life. Some would not expect those phone calls to come until at least their young adulthood but in my case, it came to me on one certain November night at one o'clock when I was only twelve years old. The phone call went a little something like this: "Unfortunately, despite the doctor's best efforts, your grandmother succumbed to her fight with cancer." This grandmother of mine was not your typical "crochet me a sweater" grandmother but rather a chemist and physicist who wanted to teach science and show her grandkids cool scientific experiments. Although I can no longer ask her, I am sure that being the youngest girl in her family of farmers going through high school and college to double major in chemistry and physics then later get her masters were not as easy of a task as it was for her male counterparts and at times discouraging. She taught me that I can put my mind to anything I want to do, no matter how many people or the situation, in general, can go against me. As I continued to grow and learn about the things scientists could do with medicine, I looked more into cancer and everything it entailed with the help of some high school classes and teachers (who each had their own impact on my choice of going into STEM). Honestly, when learning about cancer in biology and genetics classes, it seems so easy; just make it so the DNA won't mutate anymore and if it does, make it not spread. It sounds so simple in generalized terms. The thing is, each cancer is so unique to each person and they react to treatments each in their own way which is the main reason we can't come up with the general term "cure for cancer." Although it seems like a daunting task, I believe that working in finding a cure or any possible treatment for cancer can change at least one life for the better, if not more. Sure, it can seem almost impossible and so far out there but hasn't that been said for almost every single accomplishment we as humankind have been able to make? It once seemed impossible to send a man to the moon and now not only has it been done but there are people living in space for months at a time continuing that research. And the fact that men could not have made those achievements without the aid of women makes the success even sweeter, credit properly given or not. Without my experiences growing up with my grandmother and everything she taught me that a woman could do without a man, I do not think I would have ever wanted to go into an academic field that could be so biased and partial. To take it another step further, without losing the loved ones that I lost while still at a young age, I do not think that I would have the drive that I have today to be able to want to help people fight their fight. It is bittersweet to come to terms with the lack of encouragement I may get in this field of work, but when thinking about what it really means to me and could mean to people in the future, it does not matter in the grand scheme of things.