TOK mathematics knowledge at work

should never stop learning the higher levels of math.                                                                                 Mathematical research is the prime example of using reason in human life.  In a recent study that combined math and medicine, researchers have proved that patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) may be cured.  Doron Levy, University of Maryland associate professor of mathematics, Peter P. Lee, Stanford Medical School physician, and Peter S. Kim of France, created a mathematic model to create a vaccination for the cancer.  Patients with the disease were given an optimally timed cancer vaccine.   The timing for administering the drug was determined based on their own immune response.  This optimally timed vaccine was mathematically derived.  These researchers determined that there may be a precise way of giving the patient a specific amount of a drug in the vaccine at a particular time in their cancer treatment, so that they will be cured of the cancer.                                                                I think that this discovery proves the fact that science and math are connected very closely in both the classroom and in real life experiments.  I have always wanted to do scientific research on helping to cure cancers, but I had always thought it was only scientific research.  Now we have a better answer when people complain about the ‘point’ to learning higher levels of complicated math: it could cure cancer!