My name is Dave Broyles, I work for Dr. Daurenet at the University of Miami biochemistry and
molecular biology department and basically what I do here is I work on detection platforms
for nucleic acids in particular so we can actually help people to be diagnosed with
diseases that they may not actually have the ability to be diagnosed with otherwise.
So we concentrate on paper-based platforms that we can use to make it as simple and economical
as possible.
I think the neatest thing about working in a research environment is the fact that everyday
is a new question.
You never know what you're going to find out.
You can always expect to be challenged everyday, there's no routine.
I was born in St. Louis, Missouri.
Honestly when I was a kid I wanted to be a pilot, that was the only thing I could think
about.
It wasn't until I realized my eyesight was so bad I would crash into walls when I took
my glasses off that I realized that probably wasn't for me, nor for anyone else that was
possibly going to be involved in that.
In high school I focused primarily on particle physics and astronomy because my dad was always
interested in telescopes, and the universe, and just you know, things you couldn't explain,
and I think that kind of translated to me as I really wanted to be able to explain things
that no one else has even thought about, or that no one else has reached a good conclusion
for.
In my sophomore year of undergrad my dad was diagnosed with an incurable rare, extremely
rare disease and really, I took it as a challenge that maybe in just a little way I could make
someone's life easier by giving them the ability to be diagnosed soon enough so that they can
catch it before it's too late, or to catch it at all.
For people that may not have access to the first world medicine that my dad was apart
of.
So to give people the opportunity to live a healthier and better life knowing that in
some small way I could contribute to people being able to live a better quality of life
while here.
So it was kind of a wake-up call for me.
The doctors, they prescribe medicine, they initiate treatment plans, they try to help
people as best they can but really if it weren't for the research side doctors would have a
very, very high bar to reach in order to be able to treat people effectively.
Their jobs would be so much more complicated because they would have to do as they did
back in the 1800's, all the research themselves and then translate it to the patients.
This is a platform we've developed for testing for tuberculosis, and on this platform we're
actually testing for the DNA that was derived from the amplification tuberculosis genome
after we've extracted the DNA.
I can take what I couldn't do for my dad and put that to someone else that they can spend
along with their family, or they can have a better quality of life while they have it.
To me that's the ultimate goal.
There should be no other purpose of research except to make people's lives better.
The research itself is a sense of freedom, a sense of being able to pursue what you love,
of what you enjoy.
What you really think is important.
The biggest thing for math and science is don't let it scare you and be patient.
It might not come initially.
It might be something that takes awhile to grasp the concept, but be patient and be persistent.
And if you are then I can guarantee that you'll be successful.