As a parent of a child with cystic fibrosis, I think I can sympathize with the hope and excitement around gene therapies and the newest generation of medication

As a parent of a child with cystic fibrosis, I think I can sympathize with the hope and excitement around gene therapies and the newest generation of medications that can treat the underlying problem instead of just the symptoms. There is exciting important work going on there, and if it interests you and you feel like you can be successful, by all means go for it. Please don't interpret the rest of this post as trying to discourage that. At the same time, I think if you step back a little from genetics you might find other areas where you could make a contribution that don't have as many barriers to entry. There are apps that try to connect people in cardiac arrest with nearby AEDs and people trained in CPR. Can those be improved? Is there any research on alternative fitness programs that might be more appropriate for people with HCM? If early detection would improve long term outcomes, are there better ways to test for it? Would volunteer work to raise HCM awareness while holding down an unrelated office job be your way of making a difference? Some people build rockets to go to the moon, some people make smaller incremental improvements to airplane design, other people write pop science articles to keep the public excited about aviation and space travel. The world needs all of those people.