[gentle music]
- Miranda Ramirez-Vang: Science is just so much more
than just a subject or a concept.
We owe everything to science.
And if something is wrong, you can dive deep
and figure out why it's wrong and then you can fix it.
[gentle music]
My name is Miranda, and I'm a student
at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
studying biomedical sciences.
I was born and raised here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I was a very talkative child. [laughs]
Someone ate a gummy worm!
And I was very family-oriented you know, even back then,
I loved playing with my cousins and I have a big family.
So I was always active and playing,
but my parents found something odd.
I was very delayed in developing and they wondered why.
So they took me to the doctor very regularly
to do tests and see what was wrong.
Finally, I had an MRI when I was five years old
and they found a tumor in my spinal cord.
And it was intertwined with my nerves.
In order to remove that tumor,
there was going to be some nerve damage.
And so that resulted in spinal cord injury.
I lost most sensation in my right leg,
some sensation in my left leg.
And that led to me you know, losing my ability to walk.
- Dua Vang-Ramirez: Miranda, why are you here, honey?
Do you remember?
- Um, yes, I'm here for my back, to feel better.
And so I think that that's what the doctors
were kind of preparing us for.
Saying, “Hey, you know, spinal cord injury
"often results in paralysis.”
It was likely that I was just going to be in a wheelchair
for the rest of my life.
But my parents and I were like, "Nope." [laughs]
My parents and I refused to accept that.
And so you know, we pushed.
That's the thing about my family.
We are hard workers.
I was a very curious child [laughs]
and so I always liked to do a lot of reading.
And you know, my dad is also very into reading
and learning what's going on in the world.
And he was the one who told me that you know,
STEM cells are a thing.
"Have you heard about STEM cells?"
And he basically said it's like a clean slate for cells
and they can, they can grow into whatever they want.
I also learned that you know,
the reason that I wasn't going to get any better
was because my nerve cells were damaged;
that doesn't regenerate.
And so when I put those two together, I said,
"Oh, that's a key player in something that could fix this."
I was a kid when I learned that.
And so I didn't know what to do with that information.
All I knew was that there was hope, you know,
and I knew that people knew about this
and that people were doing something about it.
I was in a wheelchair for maybe about a year.
I just always found a way as a kid to participate.
I mean, even when I was in a wheelchair,
in recess I used to like race people.
And I used to do like, donuts on the wheelchair
and like wheelies.
Like, I was pretty cool in the wheelchair. [laughs]
[playing piano scales]
In elementary school, I always told kids that by high school
I would be walking again without any aid.
And it was hard once I realized
that I was in crutches for a really long time.
I have had people throughout my journey,
that, you know, didn't believe in me.
People thought that, you know,
things were going to be hard for me,
which they are, but they thought I couldn't do it.
People would stare at me.
You know, students, my peers would stare at me
when I was in class and you know,
just all these little things add up, and they hurt.
So there comes a point where too many people are telling you
that you can't do it, and it's hard,
but I was raised, you know, to go against all odds.
And so I kept going.
I started to reflect on all of the people
that have impacted my life,
all of the healthcare professionals
that have impacted my life.
I had many physical therapists and all of them who, you know,
would get together with other physical therapists and say,
"Hey, like, we need to figure out a plan."
And every time I would see them, they'd be excited
and, you know, tell me I'm making progress or, you know,
"Good job, here's a Gatorade."
There are all these people that come together
and they work as teams and they build communities
to support each other and to make the world a better place.
I want to be that person in people's lives too.
And so ultimately, that's how I've decided
that I want to go into medicine specifically.
In high school, we learned about the nervous system
in our anatomy class.
And we read this article about zebra fish
that they can, you know, regenerate their CNS,
their central nervous system cells.
And that this was, they were using this concept
to try to apply them to humans.
And so that article, I said, "Oh my gosh, you know what?
"I am old enough now that I can start looking into opportunities
"where I can be a part of that too."
When I looked at what UW-Madison was offering,
I saw that they were working with STEM cells
for central nervous system, you know, tissues,
I was so excited.
This is something I have been dreaming of for so long.
And now I get to be a part of that.
I'm hopeful that with this research there,
it will impact me directly.
But I have let go of the dream to be fully cured
because I have already accepted this,
but I know that if this happened to another kid,
it would be really hard for them.
I mean, it took me 15 years to come to this point.
All that is important to me
is that I can impact somebody else's life in the long run.
We are starting to get a good idea of STEM cells,
but then again, there's so much we don't know.
I mean, we know that we can influence these cells
with different, you know, molecular factors and say,
"Hey, if, you know, if we give you these signals,
"will you grow into what we want you to grow into?"
And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
And so you have to tweak things
and put them in different environments, like,
"Okay, does it, since it works on this plate,
"will it work in a human?"
And so, I mean, we've learned a lot,
but there's still a lot more to learn.
So we need more scientists for that. [laughs]
Science is everywhere around us,
and we can come to appreciate that when we have people
that dedicate their careers and their lives and their time
to finding answers and to making things better
for the rest of the world and the people in it.
[gentle music]