My Grandfather's Cancer

I was in fifth grade when my paternal grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. He was in his final stages, when we found out. My parents immediately made plans for India, and we left within a few weeks. My grandfather passed away on September 22nd. This was a life changing event for me; it was the first time someone so close and dear to me had passed away. To this day, I wonder if my grandfather’s cancer was diagnosed earlier, would he still be here?

I was in sixth grade when my father was hospitalized for a week. His recovery itself took four months and being the eldest child of my south-asian family, I was responsible for taking care of my younger siblings, so my mother could take care of my father. When I was in eighth grade, my mother was

My interest in the sciences continued to increase through my biology and chemistry classes in high school and at Bellevue College. This summer, I was selected for an internship at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB). My partner and I were fortunate to conduct various experiments with Halobacterium salinarum. A major goal was to find low cost and easily accessible substitutes for ingredients in the media Halobacterium grew in. ISB sends kits around the world for students to experiment with, but teachers were finding the media expensive. We wanted to make it easier for them to get the supplies they needed so students could conduct more hands on experiments, the first step in making education easily accessible around the world. My partner and I did research on all the ingredients in the media and the nutrients that Halobacterium needs to grow, then compared those components with items available at any local grocery store to test if they would work as substitutes for the expensive chemicals. The tests took a lot of time and effort; we spent hours making media with different substitutes and every few hours we would have take optical densities of the samples to see if Halobacterium was growing in our test samples or not. Sometimes of our substitutes did work,and in other cases our results were not as satisfactory, but even now we continue to work on this

I have been teaching Qur’an to both children and adults at the Redmond and Sammamish mosques. My sister and I started a business selling scarves and accessories and we would give part of our profit to Syrian refugees. In my freshman year at high school, I also joined DECA and took a marketing class which helped me grow our business even more. I have always believed that it is important for me to give back to my community. Sometimes when I am in Seattle, I see low income families or refugees carrying MCRC bags we gave them. When I go to the mosque I see many little girls wearing scarves they bought from us and my students who run up to me when they see me. Moments like this fills me with joy, knowing that in the end all my effort paid off. I was able to share my blessings with others and in the future I hope to continue on this path, helping people to live healthier lives.

The University of Washington has a very diverse and collaborative research community. As a student I envision myself benefiting from that community, learning to look at science from a new perspective. I also look forward to making full use of the university’s science resources and facilities and use those resources in the future when working in the