Making a contribution to science is a huge achievement and brings a lot of meaning to the end of his life.

Me and my wife experienced something like this in a small way. With our first child, we had an amniocentesis done. This is the rather horrific procedure where they pierce the pregnant woman’s belly with a hypodermic needle to get a sample of the fluid within the amniotic sac. This fluid contains dead cells shed by the fetus and you can do a genetic analysis of those to see if it has genetic diseases. It’s very standard but still when you see that needle get stabbed into a pregnant woman it’s pretty gnarly and there is a small risk to damaging the sac or the fetus itself.

ANYWAY when we did this, there was a nurse nearby who said “would you like to participate in a study we’re doing to try to make all the same test results available with just a simple blood test?” In addition to being stabbed with the big needle my wife also agreed to do a blood draw. They were able to use her amniocentesis results and the blood to improve on emerging techniques to find the pertinent genetic material within the mother’s bloodstream, meaning NO BIG STABBY NEEDLE.

Of course this was just in research so no benefit to my wife. But she felt proud to do it. And the punchline to this story is that my wife has a little sister. And years later when she got pregnant the science had matured and she was able to just do the blood test - no stabby needle. So we got to see the whole cycle complete and actually benefit someone we love. That was pretty great.