Math To The Rescue

When in doubt think about math. Think about it, many of the medications, cures, and methods that keep advancing towards finding medications and cures for diseases are created by research and experimentation. All of the research is mathematically related. It is done by collecting data, analyzing data, interpreting data, and evaluating data in order to successfully perform experiments. The experiments require measuring and converting certain amounts of substances to combine in order to create the medication or cure. As we all know there are some diseases that still don't have a cure, but thankfully there are many researchers, scientists and mathematicians out there who are continually working toward a cure. I found this very motivating and interesting link (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/now/20080605/bethany-hedt-using-math-to-improve-disease-monitoring.html) about a woman, Bethany Hedt, who used math to establish methods that have helped to improve efficient surveillance and disease monitoring , specifically for HIV/AIDS in areas that have limited resources.
My students in seventh grade collected, analyzed, and interpreted data at the beginning of the year when they were working on bar graphs, line graphs, circle graphs, and histograms. I know her research was much more extensive and extremely difficult, but it's amazing that this highly qualified woman used the same mathematical procedures as these twelve year old kids. So I hope that kids are starting to see that math can be used in so many different ways and in so many different contexts. Math everyday helps doctors find ways!