The Power of Science to Improve Life

George Karandinos. Image: Steve Lipofsky for HMS

It's an honor to stand here with our speakers, who so poignantly have illustrated the possible repercussions for human health and well-being that the current threats to scientific progress may bring.

I want to give my student perspective on the opportunities science has afforded me and my family and ask all of us to think about how these opportunities are distributed in our scientific fields.

As for the other speakers on this stage, science for me is personal.

In 1973, my father, still a teenager, was badly beaten by fascist military police during a student uprising at Athens Polytechnic, Greece's premier school of engineering and science. These protests would eventually culminate in the fall of the right-wing military dictatorship governing Greece. My father would, years later, return to Athens Polytechnic to begin his studies. These studies would conclude at UMass Amherst with a PhD in organic chemistry.

My father grew up in the dark shadow of authoritarianism that had overtaken the historical cradle of democracy. Like so many other immigrants, his ambitions to become a scientist started with studies at home but ended here in the United States, the modern beacon of an inspiring, but imperfect, and now increasingly troubled, democracy.

Science was the direct line for my father from authoritarian Greece to democratic America. It was also what helped me find my own footing and eventually led me to Harvard Medical School. I have vivid memories of my father writing math equations on the fogged windows of our car for me to solve at red lights. I remember sitting in on chemistry seminars as a young child, and playing for hours on my father's office computer while he ran experiments down the hallway, falling in love with the power of computers and technology as a six-year-old.

My father left the mark of a scientist on me and I have since forever been driven by the disciplined pursuit of knowledge through investigation. I was fortunate also to have an extremely loving mother who worked tirelessly to nourish my ravenous curiosity, and who as a psychiatric social worker also gave me a deep appreciation of the social world and taught me compassion. I was fortunate to have teachers who recognized and encouraged my talents. And I have been fortunate to be blessed with the most generous mentors and nurturing friendships that a student could ever hope for. Science brought me here, and now I stand committed to using medicine, as well as anthropology, to work to improve our world.

My path to Harvard Medical School took a lot of hard work, but it would have been impossible without this support. Science is many things, and our speakers have captured well how important research is for improving the well-being of all through scientific advances. Yet, like my father’s story and my own show, the pursuit of science is also an opportunity and a privilege, and like all opportunities and privileges, access to a career in scientific discovery is often not equitably distributed. Boundaries of race, gender and class still divide the scientific community, and it is our responsibility to find solutions to this divide at the same time that we fight to protect the ability for any of us to participate in and benefit from science.

Thank you for your attention and for standing with us to defend science.

Adapted from a speech delivered by HMS student George Karandinos at the HMS March for Science rally on April 22, 2017.