At 13, Alyssa Tapley was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. When treatments failed, doctors told her she was going to die. “I said, ‘Please don't give up on me because I haven't done anything with my life.’ I felt like I hadn't achieved anything. I'm just going to be this kid who died because of cancer,” says Tapley. She became the first human to try an experimental, gene-edited treatment made possible by U.S. federal funding. Now 16, she vividly remembers the day her doctor told her the experimental treatment had worked. “After thinking for so long that this was it, and there was nothing left, and I would never be able to grow up, I finally had this future again that no one could take away from me,” says Tapley. #researchfunding #harvard #leukemia #cancersurvivor