For the final theme of GCSP, we went over Health, and the necessity to fix the holes in the modern healthcare system through a lecture, an interactive lecture, and an activity.
For the first lecture, we listened to a lecture by an ASU faculty member who discussed stem cells. The lecture started by discussing the two necessities for engineers of tomorrow: being interdisciplinary and being collaborative. By combining the brightest talents from each industry, any problem can be approached with ease. The way he demonstrated this was through explaining his life story of how his career path changed so much. He started off with graphic design, but eventually became burnt out and turned to web development, working at a company for 2 years. However, after being laid off, he had no CS degree, and thus he was forced to transition into another field: molecular biology. He applied and went through UCLA Graduate School to attain his higher-level education. Eventually he saw a professorship opportunity at ASU and became hired, studying the hierarchy and make-up for tumors. There, his research discovered that neural stem cells could be used to replace dead ones from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and that there were 8 identified gene expression signatures. This overall experience indicates that pathways through industries are very fluid, and even if it seems difficult, being interdisciplined is so valuable that it will help overcome it. Furthermore, it confirms that even without having a degree, one can still go far in an industry, meaning that having a bad grade in college isn't necessarily the beginning of the end. What I found most interesting, however, was that the professor was still able to contribute to society through research, despite the setbacks he had faced. Previously, I had never considered a field in molecular biology, as I always thought science to be too intensive in areas I did not enjoy. However, after listening to his research on the development of tumors and the real-world application that it could provide, I feel far more incentivized to expand my horizons. Furthermore, it confirmed that research is certainly worthwhile, as it can provide real-world benefits.
For the interactive lecture, we went over the relationship between income and life expectancy. The class started off by letting everyone collaborate and decide the countries that we expected to have the highest life expectancy. After doing so, we discovered the answers, and for the most part everyone was correct. We then discussed what specific factors would determine life expectancy, to which we determined population density, culture, nutrition, access to healthcare, and many more. After doing so, we looked over a graph and a video explaining the historical trend of countries' wealth as an independent variable to the dependent variable of life expectancy. The graph concluded a very linear and positive trend, indicating that there was a very strong relationship between income and life expectancy. Around the 1800s, the divide was much larger, but in the recent 2010s, the gap has narrowed. This overall experience indicates the remarkable impact that medical and economic innovation have had on society, to where certain countries, such as South Korea, who were riddled with poverty and low lifespans, ended up being with the top countries for both. This likely means that efforts to increase GDP for countries could kill two birds with one stone, in that if the economy ends up doing better, so does their health. To me, this certainly incentivizes me to partake in the remarkable growth that the world has gone through, as even in the deepest of recession, people were still able to come out on top. I am already planning to minor in Economics, and this only confirmed my decision, as the ability to impact a country's economy will clearly benefit its health.
Finally, for the activity, we set up a debate about two individual topics. The topic that I was involved in was stem cell technologies, and I had to debate the Con side. Overall, stem cell technologies involve the use of stem cells, unique cells that have the ability to renew itself and create working tissue. The potential benefits that stem cells provide could be enough to end numerous diseases, ranging from Alzheimer's to cancer. However, gathering stem cells requires taking them from human embryos, which falls into the pro-choice/pro-life ethical dilemma. Arguing for the Con side, my main points were: stem cells grow so fast that it encourages the quick growth of tumors; embryonic stem cells have high immune rejection rates and may create future health problems; and that current-day methodologies of acquiring stem cells require the death of embryos, and thus is an ethical dilemma. The Pro might have argued that stem cell technologies in the future may solve for the inefficiencies in the modern-day usage of them, and that embryos are not fetuses, and thus are not human life. However, scientists are entirely unsure where to even approach to solve the inefficiencies in the usage of stem cells, and the future does not look promising, with only one FDA-approved form of its usage, and the debate of pro-choice and pro-life subsumes embryos, as it could have developed into a life one day. This experience taught me that the stereotypical sci-fi technologies that looked very futuristic and unrealistic is far more probable than I had recently thought. It also made me far more aware of the sensitivity of the topic, as I had previously thought it was purely approached from a scientific angle. This activity almost disincentivizes me from wanting to be involved in a science field, as its entire purpose of finding the truth and the solution to the world's problems is often met with backlash, which can be frustrating despite of its importance. However, CS could be connected to this field through areas similar to protein folding, where algorithms are developed to find solutions to medical problems. Overall, the stem cell technologies debate is one that is far too early to commit on, and requires far more progress for it to be even potentially involved in the real world.