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subject: Duke Biotechnology Excited by the idea of becoming a scientist since I was a small child, my in terests in pursuing graate studies intensified ring my undergraate e cation and my research experience. Rather than discouraging me with the trem endous amount of work and demands for creativity, my college years motivated me to earn a Ph.D. and to continue pursuing a career as a research scientis t. Although my exact research goals have yet to be refined, my interests inc lude studying the genetic basis of disease and the genetic mechanisms that g overn various cellular processes, such as the cell cycle, apoptosis, and tum or formation.Although I entered college without a clear research direction, the Biotechnology Program at Rochester Institute of Technology helped develo p my interest in the field of Genetics. I found much of my laboratory traini ng at RIT to be extremely rewarding. For example, one experience that early on convinced me to seriously consider genetics was a project involving the c onstruction and characterization of a recombinant plasmid. Since I worked in dependently for the most part, the project played a key role in increasing m y confidence and helping me to understand various concepts pertaining to gen etic analysis. It was this experience that motivated me to seek a position a s a teacher抯 assistant for a course in Microbial and Viral Genetics. As a T A, I learned how demanding the teaching situation is and how much teaching a course can contribute to my own learning.By this time, after discovering my passion for research and the joy of teaching, I began to seriously contempl ate graate schools. To excel in graate school, I decided I would not lim it my experience to my formal ecation at RIT. Instead, I wanted the opport unity to explore my career options to make a well-informed decision as to th e area of my future research. With these goals in mind, I chose to take adva ntage of RIT抯 Cooperative Ecation Program, which meant earning my Bachelo r抯 degree in five years instead of four. In December of 1997,Astra Arcus US A Pharmaceuticals hired me as a research assistant in the Electrophysiology department.At Astra, I learned research techniques not taught by RIT. For th e past year, I have been working with a subset of neuronal glutamate recepto rs via voltage clamping on Xenopus oocytes. The research of our lab is geare d toward the study of central nervous system diseases. Working with Astra an d earning an ecation in biotechnology from RIT sparked my interest in lear ning more about the genetic basis of disease.On a personal level, I抳e gaine d quite a bit from my cooperative experience. Confident in my ability to ada pt to new environments and learn techniques that I have never encountered, I have also learned a great deal about the nature of private-sector research and the lifestyle of the researchers. Familiar with the amount of dedication and hard work essential to project advancement, I am more focused on my goa l of becoming an excellent researcher than I ever have been. No stranger to the frustration and disappointment inherent in research work, I am spurred o n by the thrill of discovery. I find a great deal of enjoyment working in re search and plan to stay at Astra through the summer of 2005.I feel that my c ourse work as a Biotechnology major at RIT and my research experience at Ast ra have adequately prepared me for graate study. Eager to continue my ec ation and improve upon my weaknesses, I am particularly interested in becomi ng more familiar with emerging technologies relating to genetics and in gain ing more exposure in working with eukaryotic genomes. Most importantly, I wa nt to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to design and perform research according to my interests in genetics and disease. With these broad interes ts and specific goals, I am very attracted to the Graate Program in Geneti cs at Duke University. With great flexibility in choosing a degree, the prog ram would suit me well. At Duke, I would welcome the opportunity to explore my interests in Cell Biology, Neurobiology, Pharmacology, and Cancer Biology . I am also interested in learning more about possible involvement with the Duke Center for Human Genetics. My motivation to succeed is reflected in bot h my academic standing and my dedication to research. I feel that these attr ibutes, combined with a profound interest in the Biological Sciences, will e nsure me success as a graate student at Duke University.