Every week at our group meeting, we go around and volunteer “dedications” stating who we are dedicating this week of work to and offering a thank you to the people that made it possible. These dedications range from deeply emotional to practical to lighthearted, but their tone does not diminish their truthfulness. At least personally, a dedication to my coffee maker is as legitimate as one to my high school teachers as both are responsible for my ability to get up every morning and perform research. Dedications to grants and funding are popular as well, a pragmatic necessity to make any kind of scientific research comes to fruition in this day and age. These dedications could happen at any workplace – I’m sure dedications to coffeemakers happen worldwide – but ours are special.
Everyone who sits in that room, undergraduates, graduates and investigators alike, is dedicated to a common goal, curing cancer.
Cancer is such a highly personal disease that I doubt that one person in that room does not think of a particular person in their life when they walk into lab. Maybe it was a relative who struggled with cancer, a beloved teacher or friend. And even if he or she has not had a felt the influence of cancer strongly, human compassion links everyone emotionally in the fight for a cure.
No one feels the weight of these dedications more than the Texas 4000 riders who have recently embarked on grueling physical journey to raise awareness and funds for cancer research. Their persistence and ability to push themselves mentally and physically to complete a ride to Alaska is awe-inspiring. Every steep uphill or cramped muscle is weathered by personal endurance, willpower and a supportive community joined in the fight.
And this week I offer my appreciation and thanks to the whole-hearted dedication of the Texas 4000 riders who spend their summer biking as a physical manifestation of thousands of years of suffering by cancer victims and hundreds of years of research by doctors and scientists to find treatments.
This week as I enter the lab I am going to attempt to embody their determination and perseverance as I learn from my mentors and perform my own research.
I hope that through very different yet parallel journeys this summer, we can spark awareness, compassion, unity and innovation.
Sydney Hutton, Stanford University
