- [Presenter] Funding for the secret life of scientists is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
(dramatic music) - I'm a biochemist, so I study both Biology and Chemistry.
And what we do is we study Huntington's disease.
We compare samples from people who have the disease to those who don't.
These samples are from plasma, from urine, from cerebrospinal fluid.
We take these samples and we run them through an instrument called a mass spectrometer and an electro chemical array to essentially learn more so that in the future, we can come up with treatments for disease.
Dude, that was too short (Erika chuckles) but that's what we do.
(gentle music) When I was 11, I visited this crocodile farm.
And crocodiles, what they'll do when they're mortally wounded is they will flip over on their backs and slip into a coma and basically commit suicide.
And so, I said, oh yeah, my science fair project.
This is what I'm going to test.
I'm looking to see if cells commit suicide if they're infected by viruses.
So, my teacher said, "Okay, that's fine.
You can't do that here."
To do that, I needed a lab, an outside source for help, a mentor who was knowledgeable in the field.
So, I picked up the telephone book and I started calling local area labs, scientists, companies, to see if anybody would be willing to help me.
Nobody called me back, of course.
One company actually called my mother back because they were concerned that I was growing viruses in my basement.
There was one person left on the list.
He was the director of one of the local public health labs in our area.
And he said, "You know what?
Sure, I'll help you.
Why don't you come in and talk to me?
I'll train you in lab protocol, I'll train you in the technique, I'll show you how to do all this."
I took some cells, I infected them with the virus, The cells did change but it wasn't clear why.
So, that project was inconclusive but I was treated as an adult in the lab.
I learned all these techniques.
He was in my exist enough to help me to grow and to learn but he was wise enough that he never told me what to think, what to do.
The importance of a mentor, when you're a kid, I think is fundamental and crucial.
It's so much more than just the material.
It's the people who are teaching it to you and the atmosphere.
So I said, well, I can do this for kids.
I would love to to make this some sort of community service project.
I had picked "WhizKids" as the title because I believe that all kids have the ability to be whiz kids, they just need the right kind of stimulation and they need the right encouragement and the right umbrella under which they're learning, and that's how you develop a scientist.
(soft music) (keyboard clanking) One night, group of us were sitting around in my dorm room watching the television and "Miss America" was on that night.
One of my friends turned to me and said, "Hey, you should do this."
And I said, "No, I'm a scientist.
I'm a serious scientist.
I am not going to do this."
So, several days later, I had found out these folks had actually signed me up to participate in one of the local area pageants.
I continued to say no, I wasn't going to do it and they continued to make fun of me.
So, I decided if I didn't do this, that they'd never let it go.
I would just do it once and try it and then be done with it and we'd all move on.
So, I did it didn't win.
I realized that I wasn't good at these different areas of competition and that they were important in life.
So, I signed up to do it a second time.
Changed my wardrobe, I needed to figure out what to do with my hair, and this was not a factor in science for you just put it up in a ponytail and you're done.
Got a different swimsuit, I have put the effort into all these different areas and I ended up winning.
And as a result, that qualified me to be in the Miss Massachusetts (faintly speaking) And you at that point, everything changed.
(crowd cheering) It never occurred to me in a million years that I would win.
I was the first person from MIT who had ever done that.
And to this day, it's very controversial.
People react strongly.
Some will say, "Wow, that's so great, that's so interesting."
And then there were those who said, "Why are you doing this?
This is such a waste of time."
And I said, "You couldn't be more wrong."
I like to compete.
I think that competition actually encourages you to improve.
I think it makes you try harder.
To me, it was very important.
It helped me to become a more well-rounded person.
It was really a way to improve.
(soft music) (keyboard clattering) Oh, this is good.
Very important.
So, if you're waving left, must use right hand.
Reason, because you don't want people to get a full view of your armpit.
Never a pretty thing.
Nobel Price.
The butt glue.
It's a special sort of glue that you apply to your rear end that actually holds your swimsuit in place, sticks and adheres for like the rest of the night and for centuries afterwards.
ALS, which is Lou Gehrig's disease.
Clearly, I have been blinded by science.
I spent my entire middle and high school career doing science every day and not attending parties.
It's just believed that if you were in the pageant, that somehow you're in idiot.
It's entertaining when they know that you're Miss Massachusetts and nothing else.
I get to tell them that I went to MIT and that I have my own nonprofit company, the conversation ends really quickly, which is nice.
My sixth grade teacher who got me reading Jurassic Park and Andromeda Strain, she was the one who started the chain of reactions.
Heels.
Be specific, but not too specific in the answers that you give because then you don't run the risk of upsetting somebody out there.
Pick something you are really interested in to do because if you're not interested in it, you're not gonna spend time on it.
It's gotta be something that you love to do.
(gentle music)