This researcher is so very deserving of a nomination because she has spent enormous amounts of time and energy, well beyond the hours of a normal work day for YEARS, trying to find the cause and look for treatments/cure for Dercums Disease, when almost no one else would.  I am a patient of hers, and have been for 3 years.  Before meeting her, I spent years going to specialists who could not help me, and didn't seem interested in even trying to.  Dr. Karen Herbst, while so very busy conducting research on such a rare disease, with limited resources and funding, has given ALL of her patients individual attention, care, and above all, HOPE.