A cure for heart disease and its humanitarian impact

Discovery

If there was just one discovery I would make during my lifetime, it would be a cure for heart disease. From a personal and professional standpoint, finding a cure for this disease and its many ancillary impacts on humanity would save more lives, lead to a higher quality of life for millions of people, and spare literally billions of dollars in research dollars that could be used to eradicate HIV / AIDS and other diseases than any other. Heart disease claimed two relatives through congenital heart disease and it was shocking how fast their conditions deteriorated. Within eight weeks of being diagnosed, both had passed away.

Curing heart disease would also completely change how entire families and communities thought about life, and they would embrace it all the more. Take for example Mississippi, the state with the dubious distinction of having the highest incidence of heart disease. Think of there was a cure for this disease and what it would mean to the people of this region of the country, many of them challenged economically, to see the future not as a threat of death from heart disease, but stronger and more able to confront life's tougher challenges and better themselves.