Graduate / Drosophila mutants. Margin indent and SOP review PhD genetics [10]

Hey! I cant understand if each new paragraph is to be indented or not. Also, these are the first 3 paras of my SOP. I am a little unsure about the grammar here. any suggestions would be appreciated.

Built on Challenge

She had a unique perspective to each poem I taught, but she would stutter so much that it was hard to engage with her. Today, one and half years later, she leads the debate team in the school.

As a Teach for India fellow, teaching in a low-income community in suburban Mumbai, every such challenge pushes me out of my comfort zone. Having taken 2 years to solve India's most pressing challenge- educational inequity, I am now ready to solve research problems and help people lead quality lives. With an undergraduate degree in biochemistry and a Masters in biotechnology, I now desire to further my knowledge by pursuing a PhD at the University of __. The PhD program in -- promises to broaden my knowledge base and challenge me to work harder. With its highly collaborative, interdisciplinary training environment and world-class scientists carrying out cutting edge research it fits my long term vision of tapping the potential in genetics towards finding an affordable cure to every single genetic disorder.

Genetics sparked my interest in the final year of my undergraduate biochemistry program when I saw a stock of Drosophila mutants for the first time. As part of our undergraduate project we spent a year maintaining Drosophila stocks, studying these mutants, isolating salivary glands and comparing the composition of mutant and wild eye pigments using chromatography. Fascinated with the study of complex inheritance patterns, I spent hours in the library exploring it in detail. The more I read, the more convinced I became that in the coming years genetics would revolutionize modern medicine, and I wanted to be part of this revolutionary field.

I wasn't quite clear on whether I wanted to play this part; as a researcher or as a genetic counselor. To clear up this indecision, I decided to spend my winter vacations shadowing Dr. --, a genetic counselor at --. It was there that I met the mother of an 11-year old girl afflicted with a developmental disorder that caused severe mental retardation. The answers to this woman's distress/ unhappiness lay in a defected chromosome that had been passed on to her child. The woman revealed that she had had a son with similar symptoms who was 'let go' by her husband because of his illness and their financial inability to support it. She was petrified that her daughter may face a similar fate.

As I sat in that room feeling the mother's helplessness, I could not help but wonder, had there been an existing solution, could we have saved the child from that miserable fate, and consequently saved a family? In a country like India where consanguinity is a deep- rooted social trend among several communities, the statistics of children born with congenital disorders like Down's Syndrome, Thalassemia and Sickle cell anemia are staggering. Although molecular techniques have made diagnosis faster and easier, modern techniques are still incongruent with practical medicine. I noticed this repeatedly during my time at --, and it solidified my decision to pursue a PhD in the field of genetics, where I can be part of the solution to a problem instead of just creating awareness about the problem.

With new found clarity, I plunged myself into research, taking up projects in the field of genetics to expand my knowledge of bench research techniques. One of the projects I worked on at Aristogene Biosciences aimed at detecting Alu inserts in humans and its role in causing diseases. The high incidence of this transposable element in even a randomly-selected small population surprised me. I was pushed to think about the impact that these inserts would cause in day to day life.

My internship experiences helped me design protocols, interpret scientific data and refine my research interests to studying the genetic basis of diseases and new modes for therapy. For this reason, even though my university traditionally works on enzymes, I chose to do my Master's thesis on APOA1 polymorphism in patients of CAD, the leading cause of death worldwide. I started my work well before the stipulated time, standardizing protocols with my own blood sample until I could actually collect patient samples. Since it wasn't officially the year of my dissertation, I had to balance coursework and my project. I spent every waking minute either studying literature or working in the lab. Seeing my dedication and hard-work, my guide -- secured funds for me from IGMC Shimla, even though they usually do not fund Masters Students. Ready with my DNA samples by this time, I set out to amplify the region I wanted to study. However, even after repeated trials at amplification, I failed to get the desired results. For 9 months, I kept trying every possible combination, reaching out to various professors working with human DNA- but success continued to evade me. At this point, disappointment and helplessness began creeping in. I questioned my choice of this topic, knowing the risk involved. My submission deadline was fast approaching, but submitting a half-finished project would have been tantamount to giving up.

Mustering up courage, I decided to restart my project from scratch. I isolated fresh DNA with a new methodology (at State forensic lab, Himachal Pradesh) and within 3 months successfully identified polymorphisms in the disease that could lead to high risk of CAD in people. Though the journey was long and demanding, it taught me how to persevere despite numerous difficulties; and I feel proud to have seen the project to its end.

It was during this time that I happened to come across a Teach for India advertisement asking India's brightest and most committed graduates to take up the challenge to fight educational inequity. I was immediately fascinated with their model for building life-long leaders while working with the various stakeholders like students, principals etc. With Teach For --'s model of change, I knew that I could put these children on a life changing path through education, and stay connected to my life purpose of helping people lead quality lives. Hence, I decided to take two years to serve as a full-time teacher to children from low-income communities in Mumbai.

Teaching in an under-resourced school without a blueprint to follow proved to be a 2-year long, hands-on research experiment in itself. I found myself facing unique problems every day and had to put in hours of research daily just to stay on top of things. That, combined with my zeal to continuously learn and evolve, helped me achieve one of the highest growths amongst all classrooms across --- city. To widen my impact, I helped other school teachers adapt more effective methods of teaching. I also pushed my class to teach younger children, to the effect that they can now read on their own. In order to build our research acumen, we are currently learning to conduct research by studying the sleeping pattern of fruit flies.

Overall, trying to build a culture of hard work and excellence in my class has been one of the most grueling experiences of my life. However, it has helped me grow exponentially as a person and leader, greatly enhancing my critical thinking and problem solving skills. My time as a -- fellow, along with my diverse research experiences, has given me the confidence to adapt to new environments and learn techniques rendering me equipped to design plan and execute projects independently. Having become familiar with the amount of dedication and hard work essential for project advancement, I am more focused on my goal of becoming an excellent researcher than I ever have been. I know I have the commitment to get through long lab hours and the perseverance to continue in spite of lab failures.

My interaction with various people across different economic strata, has given me the confidence to work well with other people. Being the only teacher in the classroom and the sole person behind my Masters dissertation, I can function well independently and thus be a productive member of a research team. Most importantly, teaching creatively to encourage holistic development and spread the joy of learning has taught me how to be a facilitator rather than a teacher, and I strongly desire to continue to teach as a Teaching Assistant in your department, utilizing my two years of experience to the advantage of both your department and myself.

With 130 labs in diverse research areas, a rigorous curriculum with numerous choices of electives subjects the PhD program at University of -- is the perfect choice to further my research career. The intensive research work especially at Dr -- and Dr --and the seminars with internationally renowned scientists will set strong foundations fpr my reesarch career.

Moreover, the 600 plus student groupswill provide me holistic development, helping me in my future endeavors. I hope the skills and experience that I have accrued throughout my academic lifetime have made me worthy to pursue my interest in genetics. I look forward in to translating my experiences from the field and lab into concrete research work in your university.