A few years back my grandfather suffered a brain embolism that paralyzed part of his body. Because both of my parents worked, my sisters and I spent a lot of time with him and my grandmother. I was and still am very close to him more than I was with my grandmother, when this happened to him I was devastated. I was no longer going to be able to ride with him in his bike which is something we did every time my grandmother would send him for something at the grocery store. He just turned 90 and is still able to walk thanks to plenty of rehabilitation and good diet, but he often complaints about his stubborn leg that wont "listen" to him. When this happened I promised myself i would develop something whether that was a medicine or some type of prosthetic that would allow him and anyone that suffered a similar situation to be able to live a better life. If this was my goal, then physical therapy would have been a good career, but I feel as if therapy only works with the surface of the problem. Around that time, my Pre-AP biology teacher assigned us to read "The Hotzone" by Richard Preston. It became my favorite book, I was fascinated by the virus and everything this book says about the human body and these amazing organism, I fell in love with biology. By this point I knew I wanted to do something that was related to the human body and living organisms that bettered the standard of living. Another book that influenced me is "Survival of the Sickest" which talks about how humans are able to adapt to their environment. At that point I was sure i wanted to be a doctor, I later realized that although a very promising career, doctors only deal with the surface of the problem, i wanted to be able to predict the problem like a paralysis if it was possible and in cases where it was not preventable I wanted to be able to develop new technologies, medicines or devices that would better peoples lives. I decided a career is STEM and specifically in the branch of engineering because engineers are committed to bettering the standard of living and i feel like biomedical engineers are the unsung heroes of the medical field. Not to long ago there was a report that scientist had found a new type of treatment called "jumping cells" which are cells that return mobility to any body part that has been paralyzed, and i eager to be apart of that. Along those lines i want to be able to better the lives of people that suffer from cancer and children that are diagnosed and born with diseases before birth and that are in a lot of cases deadly like Trisomy 18.