Stem Cell Personal Statement

I have always been fascinated with the natural world. Many of my youthful hours were spent catching fish, turtles, insects, etc. I had a collection of jars, boxes, and a kiddie pool to keep my catches for a while for observation. When I was nine, I caught some enlarged goldfish which intrigued me. I learned that these fish were abandoned ex-pets. Because they were no longer constrained by the size of their fish tanks and had access to plenty of extra food sources, they adapted and subsequently grew much bigger than their domestic counterparts. When I was eleven, I caught a Northern Ringneck and tried to create an ideal habitat for it inside a large, transparent container with minute holes perforated in the top. I covered the bottom with rocks, dirt, moss, leaves, and a little bowl of water. I learned that the snake preferred a moist environment as it spent most of its time in the damp dirt by the water bowl or under the soggy moss. My biggest challenge was to figure out its diet. I tried everything from spiders and worms to ladybugs and the broccoli from my dinner plate. It turned out that salamanders were the only things that it would eat. While conducting “projects” like these, I am usually totally engrossed so I never seem to tire. When it comes to choosing a college major, the Biological Sciences are a

Regenerative medicine, which is based on stem cell research, sounded to me like a panacea for the sufferers of many deceases that, up until then, had been considered incurable: autism, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, arthritis, the list is endless. Stem cells could also be used to replace or repair damaged tissues. Imagine what Bobby Orr might have done had he been able to get a new cartilage for his injured knee? I could not think of a type of research that might have a more direct impact on the quality of as many lives as stem cell and regenerative medicine