Please describe your interest in the Summer Internship Program, including your science and research background, academic accomplishments and future science career plans and goals.
My grandfather, in a rare moment of lucidity, told me about a speech he heard on the radio as a child. He said that Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous speech about only having to fear "fear itself" is often taken woefully out of context. FDR goes on to clarify that we need to fear the terror which is "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified." My grandfather had Alzheimer's, so at times everything he saw was nameless, unreasoning, and unjustified. Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's are diseases of fear. These diseases trap people, take away their memories and their control, and discard them, broken and afraid.
I want to understand enough about these diseases to halt their progression, but more importantly, I want to know how to heal these people. Stopping a disease's progression is only half of the battle. Unfortunately, repairing the damage comes with its own challenges. Between inhibiting glial scar formation, regenerating the blood-brain barrier, and developing mechanisms to deliver all of this treatment, applied neuroregeneration is still a distant idea, but researchers like those at Johns Hopkins University are working every day to bring it closer. I want to be a part of that integrative research.
As a student at the University of Alabama, I am one of a small group of students studying both chemical engineering and biology. The biology courses give me a theoretical understanding of the cellular mechanics and genetics involved in tissue growth and neuroregeneration as well as knowledge of techniques I have already begun to use in my own research. My engineering studies compliment the theory by introducing me to the fluid mechanics involved in drug delivery systems and much of the chemical thermodynamics and kinetics involved in cell growth and maintenance.
For the last year I have put my studies to use researching developmental and reproductive toxicity of polymer-coated magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster in a lab on campus. Our hope is that our particles may be made safe enough to begin carrying surface conjugated medications across the blood-brain barrier. When my graduate mentor and I presented our data at the NanoBio Summit in Montgomery last year, I was introduced to an even greater range of scientific techniques and ideas, and I began to look toward other universities to find research that fit my goals.
While my studies give me knowledge, and my research gives me tools and techniques, my extracurricular activities give me the drive to succeed. I attend meetings of Omega Chi Epsilon, Alpha Epsilon Delta, and Beta Beta Beta-the chemical engineering, pre-med, and biology honor societies, respectively-and I hope to become more active in them now that I have fulfilled the requirements for membership in each. These societies surround me with the best of my peers, giving me camaraderie or competition whenever I need it. I am also an officer in UA's Society of Engineers in Medicine, where my job is to be a liaison between our members and officers. My job teaches me to compile and find compromises between differing opinions, which I have found to be a surprisingly helpful tool in handling the all-too-common ego clashes of the scientific community. Finally, I am a member of the inaugural "Ten" of an organization called Tide Talks. Tide Talks-modeled after the ever-popular TED Talks-is a forum where we bring together students to introduce ideas they think are revolutionary before a hungry audience, and nothing motivates me more than hearing the ideas that drive others to greatness.
Of course, all of the knowledge, tools, and motivation in the world are useless without an objective. My dream is to develop a single system which can pass the blood-brain barrier, inhibit unnecessary gliosis, and reactivate neurogenesis and plasticity in damaged sections of the central nervous system and to market this drug at little or no cost to those in need of it. Unfortunately, dreams are ephemeral, and time is short. Therefore, I will start by graduating with two Bachelor's Degrees and a Master of Science in Biology by 2016. I will continue by attaining an MD-PhD in Neuroscience or Tissue Engineering, and helping treat those affected by neurodegeneration as a physician-scientist. I will not finish. That is not to say I have a pessimistic view of my goals, I will not finish because even if my dream comes true in my lifetime, I cannot rest as long as people continue to life under any "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror."
My grandfather knew that FDR's address was never about fear; it was a speech about hope and taking action to overcome hardship. In my grandfather's memory and in the memory of everyone who has lived in the fear of neurodegenerative disease, I want to be a part of the hope. Just as FDR closed his inaugural address, my call today is to "wage a war against the emergency, as [...] if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe."
My grandfather, in a rare moment of lucidity, told me about a speech he heard on the radio as a child. He said that Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous speech about only having to fear "fear itself" is often taken woefully out of context. FDR goes on to clarify that we need to fear the terror which is "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified." My grandfather had Alzheimer's, so at times everything he saw was nameless, unreasoning, and unjustified. Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's are diseases of fear. These diseases trap people, take away their memories and their control, and discard them, broken and afraid.
I want to understand enough about these diseases to halt their progression, but more importantly, I want to know how to heal these people. Stopping a disease's progression is only half of the battle. Unfortunately, repairing the damage comes with its own challenges. Between inhibiting glial scar formation, regenerating the blood-brain barrier, and developing mechanisms to deliver all of this treatment, applied neuroregeneration is still a distant idea, but researchers like those at Johns Hopkins University are working every day to bring it closer. I want to be a part of that integrative research.
As a student at the University of Alabama, I am one of a small group of students studying both chemical engineering and biology. The biology courses give me a theoretical understanding of the cellular mechanics and genetics involved in tissue growth and neuroregeneration as well as knowledge of techniques I have already begun to use in my own research. My engineering studies compliment the theory by introducing me to the fluid mechanics involved in drug delivery systems and much of the chemical thermodynamics and kinetics involved in cell growth and maintenance.
For the last year I have put my studies to use researching developmental and reproductive toxicity of polymer-coated magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster in a lab on campus. Our hope is that our particles may be made safe enough to begin carrying surface conjugated medications across the blood-brain barrier. When my graduate mentor and I presented our data at the NanoBio Summit in Montgomery last year, I was introduced to an even greater range of scientific techniques and ideas, and I began to look toward other universities to find research that fit my goals.
While my studies give me knowledge, and my research gives me tools and techniques, my extracurricular activities give me the drive to succeed. I attend meetings of Omega Chi Epsilon, Alpha Epsilon Delta, and Beta Beta Beta-the chemical engineering, pre-med, and biology honor societies, respectively-and I hope to become more active in them now that I have fulfilled the requirements for membership in each. These societies surround me with the best of my peers, giving me camaraderie or competition whenever I need it. I am also an officer in UA's Society of Engineers in Medicine, where my job is to be a liaison between our members and officers. My job teaches me to compile and find compromises between differing opinions, which I have found to be a surprisingly helpful tool in handling the all-too-common ego clashes of the scientific community. Finally, I am a member of the inaugural "Ten" of an organization called Tide Talks. Tide Talks-modeled after the ever-popular TED Talks-is a forum where we bring together students to introduce ideas they think are revolutionary before a hungry audience, and nothing motivates me more than hearing the ideas that drive others to greatness.
Of course, all of the knowledge, tools, and motivation in the world are useless without an objective. My dream is to develop a single system which can pass the blood-brain barrier, inhibit unnecessary gliosis, and reactivate neurogenesis and plasticity in damaged sections of the central nervous system and to market this drug at little or no cost to those in need of it. Unfortunately, dreams are ephemeral, and time is short. Therefore, I will start by graduating with two Bachelor's Degrees and a Master of Science in Biology by 2016. I will continue by attaining an MD-PhD in Neuroscience or Tissue Engineering, and helping treat those affected by neurodegeneration as a physician-scientist. I will not finish. That is not to say I have a pessimistic view of my goals, I will not finish because even if my dream comes true in my lifetime, I cannot rest as long as people continue to life under any "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror."
My grandfather knew that FDR's address was never about fear; it was a speech about hope and taking action to overcome hardship. In my grandfather's memory and in the memory of everyone who has lived in the fear of neurodegenerative disease, I want to be a part of the hope. Just as FDR closed his inaugural address, my call today is to "wage a war against the emergency, as [...] if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe."
