gift it may have a big bow on top or be
pristinely wrapped the size does not
necessarily matter it could be large or
small
perhaps it looks something like this or
along these lines now that you have this
image in your mind and on the screen
you’re probably wondering what is inside
of this random box but before I tell you
what is actually inside I’m going to
give you a few hints first off it’s not
the game boy you asked for when you’re 8
years old and while it can’t purchase on
Amazon so most definitely does not
qualify for Amazon Prime and lastly well
there is no return to sender option
however it is a gift of impact it is not
a gift I would ever expect anyone else
to want in fact I didn’t want it at
first either but I’ve come to love it
for everything that it’s worth I call it
my gift of impact because it has led me
to some of the greatest successes and
realizations in my career thus far
successes that now act as a light at the
end of the tunnel in my constantly
changing life these gifts look something
like this completely obliterated
cartilage in both my hip joints much of
which I don’t have anymore
and this severely aunt Roberta femurs
basically for the first 16 years of my
life my lights did not sit straight in
my body and this femoral acetabular
impingement growths on both my hip
joints that restricted my femurs
removing properly my body therefore
affected by gait and lastly this a
genetic disorder by the name of Ahlers
Danlos syndrome these gifts soon turned
into this and this an array of pretty
awesome scars but I didn’t always view
them that way nowadays we asked research
scientists and physicians about that
light bulb moment when they realized
they wanted to go into a stem career
some may say well when I was in seventh
grade my science teacher showed me a
demonstration in class and I became a
Me’s by the reaction that occurred but
my story well it’s a little bit
different you see when I was a kid
I mean even more of a kid than I am now
I love science and engineering I loved
having my hands on things but I was
never able to find the motivation for
the research that I found today
everything in my childhood seemed pretty
much normal despite the fact that kids
at school made fun of me for the way I
ran I sort of just brush that off my
shoulder until one day when I was 13
years old and I was playing the game of
lacrosse sport I’d grown up playing I
was running straight down the field
about to shoot at the top right corner
of the goal when all of a sudden my hips
locked and I immediately fell to the
ground I could not get up I felt as if I
needed some sort of key to unlock my
hips a key I did not have at the time
shortly after this I found myself
sitting in countless doctors offices
week after week being forced to look in
an abundance of CT scans x-rays MRIs
even ultrasound studies copious amounts
of information was being thrown at me
and in that moment I decided I could
look at my situation one way or another
I could either like all this confusing
yet extremely interesting information go
in one ear not the other or I can
actually start listening and playing an
active role in my health I decided to
stick with option two surgeries began
quite promptly after this realization
and I found myself with a lot of free
time on my hands I mean I was sitting in
a hospital bed after all I decided to
put this free time to what I thought was
good use I began reading a plethora of
orthopedic and biomedical engineering
research journals highlighting
everything I understood an orange and
everything I didn’t understand it yellow
turned out that most of those pages were
covered in yellow but I didn’t let that
discourage me I mean I had the resources
after all I began I became that overly
annoying patient who asks way too many
questions but I think my doctors may
thank me for it later early on in my
high school career I worked on the
development of a two-part 3-d plinth
printed implant to treat internal
snapping hip syndrome and he bought the
lessons now that sounds like a mouthful
but I’ll break it down for you basically
I focused my study on female lessons not
only because I was one myself but
because one I was told
phase in my life where I thought that
being able to create an audible staff on
command with my hips was something worth
wanting to all of my friends and doctors
but more importantly research had found
that when female adolescents are going
through puberty their hips grow faster
than the rest of their body and then
this iliopsoas our hip flexor tendon
which sits right about here on my cup
joy is then forced to span a greater
surface area and becomes tight inflamed
and then snaps I realized that if I
could find a way to relieve the stress
of this iliopsoas off of those eminences
then I could ideally prevent the
snapping my research is actually quite
successful I computationally designed
tested and 3d printed a two-part implant
one located at the pelvis and one
located right below the greater
trochanter on my hip joint now like many
gifts mine always seems to keep on
giving after three years of treatment
quite close to home my doctors decided
that Sofie Adil’s see in the mystery
case was truly a mystery and there was
not much more they could do for me but
there was one place they had in mind and
it goes by the name of Boston Children’s
Hospital at the time I felt confused and
terrified and quite frankly abandoned I
mean I had never been given treatment
out of the Yale Network before but I
came to learn that Boston Children’s
Hospital was probably the best thing
that would ever happen to me I was
getting the health care I needed and I
was getting this amazing support system
in terms of research mentorship being
the science minded kid I was I had to do
all of my research I looked into the new
doctors new environment and just about
everything I was getting myself into
even if I generally didn’t know at those
points in time during my excessive
research I came across an article in The
New York Times titled doctors experiment
with new ways of fixing the ACL in my
mind I thought orthopedic score but it
was even better when I came to realize
that my own doctors were the ones behind
this new treatment the team that Boston
Children’s Hospital had identified that
the ACL in the knee does not heal
naturally due to a lack of blood supply
in the area that would inevitably send
signals throughout the rest of the body
to initiate regeneration however if you
can find a way stabilize the blood in
the area then a clot forms and those
signals can be sent
therefore encouraging her generation I
recognize that the same thing happens
with yah sevate labrum in the hip joint
so if I could develop a scaffold with
similar properties to that in the bridge
in hand Stacy Elton I and many others
could avoid the countless favorite
repair surgeries and allow our bodies do
what they do best which is of course
heal you see we have blood which is this
great stimulant for healing which comes
straight from the patient’s body and
this scaffold that I worked on in the
lab which has the ability to hold the
blood in the wound site therefore
activating the platelets and then those
two things together form a stable clot
that solidifies which has the ability to
encourage cell engross proliferation and
even tissue we feel like now my research
adds that presented here sounds pretty
much perfect
but I can assure you that it was far
from that I met a multitude of
roadblocks along the way and there were
many times when I wanted to give up just
like many scientists would but I had
this false idea in my mind that if I
gave up well then it was fair game for
my doctors to give up on me something I
had always feared but that is not my
point here my point is that I do not
rate my success on the awards I’ve won
international science competitions for
this research I just described or even
the fact that I’m standing talking to
all of you right now I rate my success
on the feeling of walking out of the lab
at the end of a long tiring and
confusing day and knowing that there are
research scientists in positions across
the globe working on similar things as I
am to better my life and the life of
many others if I can help out too then
why not I’ve come to realize that
there’s a very very close tie between my
research and my health challenges I know
I will not be better tomorrow or next
month or maybe even next year but when
is there a day we walk into the lab and
sit down at the bench and say today I am
going to cure a colon cancer we don’t
it is simply impractical and irrational
we have been working on a cure for colon
cancer for the last 10 to 15 years and
still have not found it but there will
be a day we do find it just like there
will be a day where I will be able to
walk up a single fly
Aires and not feel as if my legs are
going to collapse from underneath me it
is research that will make that possible
it is research that has allowed me to
stand on the stage for the last 10
minutes talking all of you without
eating my cane it is research that
brought tears to my eyes at the sight of
two straight legs for the first time in
my life it is research that has allowed
me to learn how to walk again and it is
research that has acted as that light at
the end of the tunnel you do not have to
be a math or science genius to play an
active role in your health but if you
find something you are confident about
it’ll act as the force behind you
towards your success whether that be in
developing a more positive or optimistic
attitude these gifts are not supposed to
break you down they’re supposed to build
you up as cliche as that sounds these
gifts help me realize that I love
science and I love engineering and I
love helping people at least that’s how
I’ve managed to see it thank you very
much
[Applause] [Music]