Biology Personal Statement

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Personal Statement The first time I looked into a microscope, I knew I was addicted. I was six years old, my elementary school was closed due to the weather, and I had nowhere to go. My mother had no choice but to take me into her lab with her, and in order to keep me from being bored, she let me look into a microscope, under which I saw hundreds of bacteria. To me, a whole new world of living organisms, living within the world I already knew, was uncovered. Biology became a subject of interest, and the older I grew, the more I learned, and the more I realized that this was to become my life’s focus. During this time, I also developed a love for the logic and aesthetic of mathematics. The pure, indisputable nature of mathematics as well as …show more content…

In Dr. Hendrix’s lab at the University of Pittsburgh, I began nearly a year ago, using biochemistry techniques, such as site-directed mutagenesis through PCR and complementation tests, to uncover the structure of the HK97 bacteriophage through its function. I then spent my summer viewing the mutants under an electron microscope and determining structure through estimated residue-residue interactions, with the aid of software such as Chimera, VMD (Visual Molecular Dynamics), and SPDBV (Swiss Protein Database Viewer), which reconstruct visual models of bacteriophages. In particular, I used a technique called Molecular Dynamics Flexible Fitting (MDFF), which takes into account the motion of the virus when fitting the reconstructed structure into the More recently, in collaboration with Dr. Conway’s Lab, I’ve taken cryo-electron micrographs and, using a reconstruction software, AUTO3DEM, which orients and averages hundreds of these image, formed reconstructions of the HK97 capsid. Thus I’ve used several techniques, both biochemical and computational, to help build a working model of the HK97 capsid. In particular, I’m grateful that my research in the Hendrix and Conway labs have deepened my comprehension of biology at the deepest, most fundamental level, as my research on this virus helps me

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