By Logan Leak
My goal in life is simple: to cure cancer. But this goal is moving further out of reach because of the slew of funding cuts to public research.
I have dedicated my life to becoming a research scientist so that I can help develop new therapies for patients with cancers that currently have no good treatment options. As a student at Mentor High School, I took advantage of the AP science courses, Science Olympiad competitions, and the science research course, which nurtured my early interests.
This led me to the University of Chicago, one of the top universities in the country. I found myself ready to tackle the challenging coursework because of the support I had received from my strong education and upbringing back in Ohio. I took coursework in biological sciences and started engaging in cancer research during my first quarter of school, and I fell in love with it. Eventually, I helped to develop a nanoparticle that could help deliver cancer treatments to patients living with lymphoma. It was exciting to see how I could use what I was learning in the classroom to create something that could potentially save lives.
I wanted to continue working in cancer research, and so I decided to pursue a PhD in Cancer Biology at Stanford University. There, I discovered that a molecule being tested in clinical trials as a cancer therapeutic acts via a different mechanism than what was thought previously, helping us predict which patients could benefit from this treatment.
Now, I am a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California San Francisco, where I am working to develop therapies for patients with a specific sub-type of lung cancer.
While I am so grateful for everything that led me to where I am now, I fear that other young students may not have the same opportunities that I had because of the massive cuts to federal research funding through the National Institutes of Health. In each stage of my career, my research has been supported by grants from the NIH.
We are already feeling the effects of these cuts: my graduate program has accepted fewer students this cycle; grants are being delayed or even cancelled; my advisor told us to slow down our purchasing of essential supplies for our experiments. If Congress makes these cuts permanent in this year’s budget, then new treatments will be harder to develop, and more patients will die of illness as a result.
I urge you to support science however you can. Call your representatives and tell them to reject cuts to the NIH’s budget. Tell your friends and family about what is happening to funding for life-saving research.
I’m asking you to help me achieve my dream of ridding this world of cancer. But I’m also asking you for so much more. I do not want to be a part of the last generation of American scientists. I want other students like me from Mentor, Ohio to dream big and be able to make an impact in the world, and that will only happen if we stand up, speak out, and support science.
Logan Leak is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California San Francisco studying lung cancer. He is from Mentor.
