Hannah Loves - The feeling that what you're doing can help others.

"My name is Hannah and I am a junior here at the University of Kentucky, an undergraduate. And we are in the Wethington Building where there are tons of research labs and classroom buildings underneath. And I am working with cell culture right now. Well, as you know, obesity and type two diabetes are huge problems in the US right now and so I hope that this will help the overall research about obesity and type two diabetes. Because there has been some research to say that the maternal's health, the maternal exercise and sedentary if that will impact the offspring's health. So I would really like to see if there is a difference and if, when mothers exercise during pregnancy if that will truly help the offspring's health. I'm from Louisville, Kentucky and I was first motivating to do research when I was a little girl. I grew up with a best friend with a bleeding disorder called hemophilia. And it's where your blood doesn't clot so like ours, we spontaneously bleed but our blood clots it up and we're good. But his, he would constantly get bruises and he would always be in pain and I was just so frustrated and confused, why isn't there a cure? Why can't we help him be a normal kid? So that's when it first sparked my interest where maybe I can be somebody who can help people like him find cures or find other kinds of things to help him through that. My parents are not scientists. One is a bookkeeper and the other is a property manager, so nowhere close to science. So they're not sure why or where my genes came from and why I'm so interested in science. I've always like math and science, though. I work with cells so I have to use a microscope to make sure they're growing well. Very tiny cells, mouse embryonic fiber blast to be specific and I'm working with two groups of cells and once group of cells came from mothers who exercised and the other group of cells came from others who are sedentary. So I want to see if the offspring will have different health outcomes. So I'm doing a adipogenesis experiments to see if the cells will differentiate into fat cells and I'm also doing glucose uptake to see how well those cells uptake glucose. I think that we all have the potential to make a difference in the science world because we need so, we need so much evidence to truly say that something is true. So we need a lot of research and so we need all people going into science to do research. I'm passionate about it because I feel that I am making a difference and that hopefully what I am doing now can help others continue to do research and make a difference in the health of the world, of every human being because it's awesome getting the feeling that what you're doing can help the health of others."