Page 9 - My FlipBook

Elizabeth Wolffe’s early interests were Egyptology and writing, but her
father encouraged her to pursue a career in science. She became enamored
with biology, because it seemed that so much still needed to be discovered.
“I thought about medicine, but my stomach wasn’t strong enough,” she said.
She studied microbiology and cell biology, and she “never regretted it for an
instant. This is really the golden age of biology,” she added.

PERSEVERANCE PAYS

Zhuo-Hua Pan, born in China, was in third grade when the nation’s premier,
Mao Zedong, launched what became known as the Cultural Revolution.
Believing that China was drifting too far away from its Communist beliefs,
he set out to destroy all aspects of Chinese culture that didn’t support
communism. Intellectuals and people identified as “class enemies” were
persecuted or killed. Mao shut down many schools, and educated young
people from the cities were sent to the
countryside to do hard labor on farms.
Pan, whose father was a high
school mathematics teacher, was
allowed to finish middle school, but
high school was out of the question.
Instead, young Pan, who dreamed
of becoming a mathematician like
his father, was sent to work on the
farms for three years. Eventually, he
attended high school but then had to
work on the farms for another three
years. “Even in the countryside,” Pan
said, “I spent my time reading books
about mathematics. I never dreamed I
As a young man growing up in China,
could go to college, but I thought that Zhuo-Hua Pan never dreamed he
someday, if I got the chance, I would would be able to attend college.
be prepared.” Today he is one of the pioneers of
the growing field of optogenetics,
driven by a desire to cure blindness.

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BODY 2.0 CAREERS IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING