Medical Research Personal Statement

I am interested in research because I want to do more than just treat patients. I want to find better treatments and push forward our understanding of disease to give back to the scientific community instead of just using it. I want to do medical research, specifically, because I want everyone to be able to experience a full life, and I know that a major step in accomplishing this is discovering the techniques and technology that would make it possible. Working towards discovering these things would allow me to help not only the patients that walk into my office but also future patients I may never see. My interest in research is what brought me to the University of Tennessee in the first place, leading to my application to this dual program.

Once I became familiar with the lab and the required techniques, I was assigned to duplicate an experiment done by colleagues in another lab, creating PDMS-norbornene membranes with Grubbs II catalyst. After successfully and consistently performing the procedure, I was allowed to screen conditions to try to produce a membrane with more optimal physical and separation properties, like altering catalysts, monomer, and using copolymerization. It was my first experience solving complex research problems outside of the classroom on my own. These trials gave no results worth publishing, but they did give me the experience of doing real science, and my enjoyment while performing those experiments was a major contributing factor in my decision to pursue a career in

The course was titled as biochemistry due to my major, but I was allowed to continue working under Dr. Long as long as I submitted my research to a biochemistry professor at the end of the semester. By then, I had finished my organic chemistry course and developed a strong background in the subjects required to work on my own projects. I chose to study functionalized vinyl-added polynorbornenes due to the success my mentor had working with them and also to help speed his research. The functionalization of norbornene by adding a silane group produced membranes with good permeability and selectivity when compared to non-functionalized norbornene, so I hoped to try previously untested versions of this side-chain to observe their impact to see if they followed the expected trend. To do this, I tried monomers with different groups attached to the silicon atom, replacing ethoxy groups with methoxy and methyl groups. This research brought me experience in many areas of material science: monomer preparation and purification, polymerization, polymer precipitation, and film casting. I created the monomer and worked through every step to film production and testing without needing supervision. I also had to learn and perform air-free techniques involving glove boxes and Schlenk lines. Difficulties with the different reaction conditions and ratios needed for each monomer to form correctly made every run a test of