Early Exposure

My fascination with biomedical began at home, where I was surrounded by biomedical tools from my father’s company, herbal medicines from my aunt’s pharmacy, and the quiet beauty of my grandparents’ countryside farm.

I grew up in the hum of my little brother who suffered from pneumonia, in the gentle hum of the ventilator mixing with his heavy breaths. That sound taught me what illness means, and how fragile health can be. Thankfully, as he grew older, he also grew stronger.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, my father was one of the few in Vietnam who, though not part of the public health system, went into the outbreak’s epicenter. When the country was under lockdown and the first seventeen patients were critically ill, he brought scarce ventilators into hospitals where they were desperately needed. That moment demonstrated for me what courage looked like in contemporary context, and that was why I want to follow the same pathway.

If a future health crisis ever comes, I don’t want to stand helpless. I want to fight back with knowledge, compassion, and the same dedication that my father once carried into the frontlines.

Plant-based Curiosity

My interest in natural medicine grew as naturally as the plants around me. From childhood, I was surrounded by the wisdom of Vietnamese remedies from my beloved ones:

  • When I got a rash from caterpillars, my grandmother would crush loofah leaves and dab the sap on my skin.
  • When I reached puberty, my aunt treated my scalp fungus with a homemade herbal medicine.
  • And my cousin once gave me coconut oil and turmeric cream that I still use up to this day.

Those moments taught me that healing can be simple, local, and deeply human.

That curiosity eventually grew into research. For my WICO project, I investigated the anti-diabetic potential of compounds extracted from Eleusine Indica (goosegrass), a humble weed with remarkable biochemical promise.

Through that study, I realized how traditional knowledge and modern science can converge, that every leaf, every root, and every molecule might hold an untold story waiting to be understood.