A Brazilian scientist worked in silence for 25 years on something medicine said was impossible: regenerating the spinal cord.
Dr. Tatiana Sampaio extracted a protein from placentas that acts as "biological glue" — recreating the conditions that let embryonic neurons connect.
Six patients with complete spinal cord injuries regained movement.
Bruno Drummond was tetraplegic after a car accident. Two weeks after treatment, he moved his toe. Today he walks, climbs stairs, dances.
Her quote when asked why she finally went public:
"I no longer have the right to be conservative."
25 years. No social media. No self-promotion. Just the work.
This is what real science looks like.
Bom dia pra você que trabalha pra sustentar auxílio terno, voo de jato da FAB pra assistir jogo de futebol e almoço de lagosta 🦞 toda a semana.
Educação pública péssima. Saúde sofrível. Infraestrutura decadente.
🗣️ Marcelo: "In Rio, we have this thing called the animal lottery. It’s maybe not 100% legal, but hey, it’s the game of the people. You pick a number associated with an animal, like an ostrich or a rooster or whatever. Every day, there’s a new drawing. My grandfather won I don’t know how much money in the animal lottery, and he used it to buy the Beetle.
It was unbelievable. We drove everywhere in that car. But when I was 15, I was invited to go play real 11-a-side football with the Fluminense youth team. The problem was that the training camp was in Xerém, almost two hours away from my house, and it was going to be impossible for us to pay for the gas to drive there every day. So I decided to stay there in the dormitories.
I was in Xerém all alone, away from my family. My grandpa would drive up on Saturday night so I could spend Sunday at home in Rio, and then he’d drive me back.
You gotta understand. He won the animal lottery. It wasn’t that much money. So this was an old Beetle from the ’70s. Every time you’d turn the steering wheel too far, the radio station would change.
After a while of going back and forth from Rio to Xerém, I was just worn out. I felt like a slave to football. I saw all my friends back home going to the beach and enjoying life, and all I did was train.
One day my grandfather came to pick me up and I told him, “I’m done. I’m quitting and coming home.”
He said, “No, no, no. You’re not doing that. After everything we have fought for?”
I said, “I’m stuck on the bench. I’m wasting my youth. I’m done.”
And then he started crying.
He said, “Marcelo, just stay calm. You can’t quit now. I have to see you playing at the Maracanã one day.”
That really hit my heart. I told him, “Alright, I’ll play another week.’
Eventually, I gave up on giving up.
Two years later, with my grandfather in the stands, I walked out onto the pitch at the Maracanã with Fluminense’s first team. He knew. He had been betting on me from Day One, and he just knew."
Já tentaram expropriar nosso estádio, fizeram a gente mudar de nome, nos rotularam de "italianinhos", nos acusaram na "era Parmalat, tentaram impedir a reforma do hoje Allianz Parque, desmereceram Paulo Nobre, acusaram a Crefisa e sempre que assumimos a liderança, acontece uma catarse de esperneio. Enquanto os cães ladram a caravana passa. Há 111 anos é assim e isso não vai mudar. Mas hoje não somos mais só "os italianinhos". Somos um povo de todas as raças e crenças que carregam um time. Vão ter que se esforçar mais #TodosSomosUm
Quando ouvir que "faltou recursos pra saúde e educação", lembre-se que torramos R$ R$ 10 BILHÕES em supersalários por ano - e o valor só cresce.
O FIM dos supersalários é urgente!
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