Darius Weems is a 19-year-old from Athens, Ga., who was just 15 when he starred in a film that received 24 documentary awards.
He'll be at the Phillips Center on campus tonight for a special free showing of "Darius Goes West: The Roll of His Life."
He loves music, especially rap, and meeting new people.
He and a group of buddies from Athens have raised close to $2 million for medical research.
Oh, and by the way, this teenager's "ride" is a wheelchair. He knows he'll die before the age of 30, because he has a fatal, inherited disorder called Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is the most common fatal genetic disorder to affect children worldwide.
It primarily affects boys, who inherit the disorder through their mothers, and symptoms usually appear between the ages of two and six.
Those who are born with DMD show rapidly worsening muscle weakness that starts in the legs and pelvis before moving to other areas such as the arms, neck and shoulders. By the age of 12, most will be confined to a wheelchair.
There is no known cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, although researchers have identified the gene involved.
The University of Florida is one of many centers researching potential treatments for DMD.
Claudia Senesac heads a project that uses magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to study changes in the muscle tissue of boys between five and 15 who are being treated with an investigational drug called ataluren in a multi-center trial.
"This disease affects every muscle in the body, and these young men eventually die of cardiac disease or respiratory failure," she said. "It is devastating."
Senesac said that researchers hope to see a cure for DMD within her lifetime.
"There are so many things on the horizon, and those of us working in the laboratory think we will see things change in the not-too-distant future."
Darius knows what lies ahead. His older brother, Mario, died of DMD at 19.
One of Mario's friends at Clarke Central High School was Logan Smalley, who knew the Weems family well.
Mario died shortly before graduation, but Smalley graduated from Clarke Central and went on to attend the University of Georgia as a special education major. He has since earned a master's degree in education from Harvard.
The roots of the film "Darius Goes West" lie in Smalley's idea to help his lifelong friend see some of the world beyond Athens, Ga. Smalley had been part of a UGA-sponsored study-abroad course at the Cannes Film Festival and wanted to try his hand at directing a documentary.
His subject and star would be 15-year-old Darius. The film crew would be made up of 10 other friends traveling in an RV. Several had been counselors at a summer muscular dystrophy camp Darius attended. They would test wheelchair accessibility as they traveled across America. The ultimate goal would be to get Darius' wheelchair tricked out on MTV's show "Pimp My Ride."
Darius felt the ocean for the first time in Panama City, wheeled through the bat caves of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, had a ball in Las Vegas and gaped at the vastness of the Grand Canyon.
When they got to Los Angeles, MTV would turn the dozen travelers down, but the film the group put together, "Darius Goes West: The Roll of His Life," has been captivating audiences since its release.
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