Translator: David DeRuwe Reviewer: Claudia Sander
I'm a scientist.
Or better, a young scientist
who discovered the world of research at the age of 14.
And it's about this that I'll share with you today,
about education, about science,
and how a research project, started at school,
was able to open the world's doors for me
and introduce me to things I never imagined experiencing.
My story with research began in 2010,
when I was 10 years old.
In 2010, my mother died of cancer.
I was a child.
So, this dream arose in me:
I'll become a scientist and discover the cure for cancer.
But, at this same time, various things happened,
and my father couldn't live with me because he worked so much,
and I went to live with other people.
And this dream was kind of put to the side.
At 14, I had to move to an aunt's house,
and there were difficult months of transition.
It was then I decided to dedicate myself to this childhood dream
that started on account of my mother.
I resolved I would become a scientist.
At the same time, I met a guy who changed my life.
His name is Fabio Bruschi, and he was my biology teacher.
Fabio Bruschi taught me how to be a researcher
and how to put research into practice.
At the same time, he introduced me
to something that would completely change my world view:
science.
At 15, I had already entered a university in Londrina,
at such a young age,
as a junior researcher developing a research project.
And, after five years without living with my father,
he and I decided to live together.
It wasn't easy,
because we didn't know each other anymore, we had many conflicts,
but, even so, we decided to keep on.
And I was trying so hard to not give up the research
nor the internship I had already gotten.
At 17, I was the first and only person from Latin America
to reach the finals of the Google competition for young scientists,
in the United States;
and the first Brazilian woman to participate three times consecutively
at Intel ISEF, the world's biggest science fair.
(Cheers) (Applause)
Seeing so many good things happening in my life,
my father and I looked at each other and said,
"We need a good relationship. We need to get along well."
So, we started trying harder.
This was the end of 2018.
At 18, after breaking into the science world
and getting to know countries I never imagined, like Serbia and Israel,
I realized that people grow up making choices,
but, sometimes, we don't realize that our choices make and shape us.
And my choice of wanting to study and to fight for my future shaped me.
My father and I, at this time,
experienced something that hadn't happened before.
He shared pride in me, and I in him.
My accomplishments were his accomplishments.
(Applause)
He was a very intelligent person,
he always liked writing very much, already had two books published,
was writing a third,
and, at the beginning of this year, my father got sick.
He had a brain injury,
stopped walking, stopped talking -
this took from him all his dreams and plans -
and, last week, my father died.
And I say that my choice of wanting to study shaped me
because if it weren't for this choice, I wouldn't be here now,
talking with you.
I wouldn't have become what I've become,
and I wouldn't have the fortitude to continue.
But where did this choice come from, how did it come to me,
what was the process?
This is Jane and Maria,
the founders of the school I studied in,
Colégio Interativa, a private school in Londrina.
When they founded their school,
Jane and Maria decided that the students who trained there
would not be trained as students
but as people and human beings engaged with the world.
In 2001, Maria and Jane
started a scientific initiation course,
and their dream was that children at the elementary education
could develop critical thought.
It was there that I became a scientist,
with scholarly support
and the dream of two women who, like me, wanted to change.
But for me to change in the way that they dreamed,
I needed to detect a problem and, in some way, solve it.
It was then that this image entered the scene.
What you are seeing is Candida.
Candida is a fungus,
it is a microorganism responsible for various fungal infections in hospitals
and, if you're a woman, it's very likely you've heard of candidiasis,
an infection that affects 75% of Brazilian women.
If you're a man, don't stop paying attention,
because Candida isn't only a problem for women.
It's a fungus that affects the gastrointestinal tract,
the airways, and the genital and oral passageways.
But the biggest problem with Candida today
is that there are some strains, some species of this microorganism,
that are becoming resistant to the medications used in the market.
So, the traditional medications, like fluconazole and itraconazole,
are becoming inefficient at combating these infections.
At the end of 2016,
while I was participating at a science fair,
I heard a story about a mother who had just given birth,
and, during the pregnancy, she had contracted
a multi-resistant Candida infection on her thumb.
When her baby was born, she couldn't touch her own child without gloves;
she couldn't breastfeed her own child
on account of the very toxic treatment she needed.
In my head, it didn't make sense:
How is it that an organism so small can do so much damage?
And I determined to resolve this problem.
It was then, in 2016, that I looked up the State University of Londrina,
in my city,
and I found the microbial ecology lab.
Asking for an internship, I knocked on the door
and said that I wanted to develop something
that could help the fight against candidiasis.
They welcomed me, and we started to develop a project.
The idea was to use nature to our advantage,
to find a natural solution for candidiasis.
And so it went.
We found the long-awaited alternative in the peel of an orange.
In the fieldwork that the lab was doing to treat citrus canker,
an illness that attacks orange plantations,
one orange, in particular, called attention.
It was full of fungus and rotten, but one part of the orange was healthy,
and nobody understood why.
Taking this orange to the lab,
they discovered that, in the healthy area, there was a bacterium,
and that this bacterium prevented the proliferation of that fungus.
So, the idea was to test this bacterium against Candida
to see if it could prevent proliferation of the fungus in question:
Candida.
After doing many studies to determine what this bacterium was -
initially, we didn't know its genus, much less its species -
we called it LV for "lesão velha", coming from an old lesion in the orange.
With LV, we began the process of producing this bacterium,
extracting its components
and purifying them.
In the end, we found a substance known as OAC, an organometallic complex.
And this organometallic complex,
when applied to four different types of Candida,
is 820 times more effective than any commercial remedy,
and its cost of production is three times cheaper.
Later, after making molecular identifications,
we saw that OAC is really a fluopsin C.
And so was born an alternative treatment for multi-resistant candidiasis,
made from an orange bacterium
that's more efficient, less expensive, and less toxic.
(Cheers) (Applause)
I championed this idea to the world.
I showed the viability of this alternative
to renowned doctors and researchers around the world.
Even to the 1989 Nobel Prize for Medicine winner,
I had the opportunity to share my ideas.
But I never imagined winning so many prizes and titles
because this never was something that I pictured myself doing.
At home, there were problems that I couldn't understand,
but, away from home, I had success,
and I couldn't understand why it was so.
But Fabio, that teacher I told you about at the beginning,
showed me that I could do anything.
It was with this in mind that, during my high school years,
I decided to save the world.
It's so cliche, but this was what I wanted.
I wanted to save the world, transform lives,
change realities, and make the world a better place.
And, after so much research, seeing that my results were working
and that my research attained extraordinary levels,
I saw that, yes, I was saving lives
because science saved mine.
If it weren't for science, I would have quit.
If it weren't for research, for education, and for studying,
I would have given it all up.
But education made me persist and made me a resilient person.
So resilient that, at the beginning of this year,
I was accepted at two American universities:
the University of New Hampshire and Alma College.
And I can guarantee you
that this Brazil is full of Maria Vitórias,
Maria Vitórias with problems even worse than mine,
coming from even worse realities,
but they're Maria Vitórias full of ideas,
young people with a thirst for learning.
And they're waiting for some educator, for some teacher
who sees them and believes in them in the same way the Fabio did with me.
This young person's in your school,
this young person's at your side,
this young person's in your circle.
And they're waiting for someone to believe in them.
My father was my biggest fan.
Only he understood my effort, my dedication,
and all that I gave up for science and my studies.
And he told me something that I never believed,
but he told me that the world would be small for me.
And today,
after losing my mother,
after losing my father,
going through all I've gone through,
and accomplishing what I've accomplished,
I can guarantee you
that the world is small for those who believe they can change.
I'm 1.6 meters tall,
I'm small, I'm 19 years old,
but I believe I can make a difference,
and this is enough, nothing more is needed.
I never was the best in my class, never got the best grades in my class,
quite the opposite.
But my effort and my dedication got me to where I am today.
I believe in education.
I believe that education is the solution for our world
and not this silliness happening now.
(Cheers) (Applause)
Thank you very much.
(Applause)