Defining yourself as a person or as a scientist is no easy feat. In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers grapple with who they are and how they want to be perceived.

Part 1: After Fernando Cuevas flunks out of college, he’s worried he’s destined to be stuck at his dead end Best Buy job forever.

Part 2: When Sonia Rehal’s sister passes from complications caused by the rare disease lipodystrophy, she doesn’t know how to define herself in the absence of her other half.

Fernando Leonardo Cuevas is a Theoretical Mathematician by degree, Analytical Engineer by profession, and an avid fan of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, MMA and pointlessly hard video games.

Sonia Rehal is currently an educator at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and the director for Lipodystrophy Canada, and non-for-profit organization supporting lipodystrophy patients and caregivers. Being a lipodystrophy patient herself, her advocacy for awareness started young. Interested in understanding the pathophysiology of lipodystrophy, her postdoctoral training focused on lipid inflammation and insulin resistance in animal models of obesity. This journey has allowed her to travel the world and publish important research findings in highly cited research journals. More importantly, her academic career has given her a unique perspective to patient advocacy, highlighting how important disease awareness and research funding for prospective treatments and are for the lipodystrophy community. Lipodystrophy can vary in severity however these themes hold in common: Lipodystrophy is incurable, has inadequate medical treatment and affects multiple organ systems. Unfortunately, a severe form of lipodystrophy has affected her family and herself, losing both her mother and sister to its complications at a very young age. This loss has only further intensified her passion to support our rare disease community affected by lipodystrophy.

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