I heard the word "cancer" for the first time in the car on the way to my first day of second grade. My mom explained that my friend's mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and that even though the doctors were doing everything they could, there wasn't a cure yet. I was confused. I though doctors could cure everything, that all the answers to human sickness had already been discovered. I attended my first funeral in the fourth grade. Three months earlier, a friend had confided in a group of us that her mother had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. At the time, I still didn't understand the inevitable link between cancer and death. I thought her mom would just get better, like my friend's mom in the second grade had. She didn't. I was struck by the unfairness of it all. How could a nine-year-old girl be expected to grow up without her mom? Why hadn't the doctors done more to save her? Suddenly, the world felt very large and very dark. Biology fascinates me. How did such complex patterns and systems develop naturally, without any interference? Biology humbles me, because humans will never create anything as amazing as what evolved from those first unicellular organisms. Biology also terrifies me. How can our own bodies, that work so hard to keep us alive, suddenly turn against us? How can we know so little about the very mechanisms that power our bodies? While I don't want to attribute my motivation to pursue biological engineering to cancer, I guess it is a part of it. I desperately want to understand the disease, to discover to secrets and find a way to use its destruction against it. But I think I am more inspired by my friends and their parents, those who faced an impossible, horrifying disease with grace and bravery. I want to find answers for them. Biological engineering, to me, is about manipulating biological functions, processes, phenomena that have existed since the beginning of time to find the answer to modern unsolvable problems like cancer or Alzheimer’s: so, biological engineers are almost scientific archeologists, scouring the inner workings of organisms and humans and cells to find hidden answers. I believe that if we understand more about the systems and cells that power us, we will learn how to optimize their health and longevity, and find the cures to diseases that remain incurable. Beyond all, I want to give more life, more time, and more hope to all those who hear the word "cancer" every day.

I heard the word "cancer" for the first time in the car on the way to my first day of second grade. My mom explained that my friend's mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and that even though the doctors were doing everything they could, there wasn't a cure yet. I was confused. I though doctors could cure everything, that all the answers to human sickness had already been discovered. I attended my first funeral in the fourth grade. Three months earlier, a friend had confided in a group of us that her mother had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. At the time, I still didn't understand the inevitable link between cancer and death. I thought her mom would just get better, like my friend's mom in the second grade had. She didn't. I was struck by the unfairness of it all. How could a nine-year-old girl be expected to grow up without her mom? Why hadn't the doctors done more to save her? Suddenly, the world felt very large and very dark. Biology fascinates me. How did such complex patterns and systems develop naturally, without any interference? Biology humbles me, because humans will never create anything as amazing as what evolved from those first unicellular organisms. Biology also terrifies me. How can our own bodies, that work so hard to keep us alive, suddenly turn against us? How can we know so little about the very mechanisms that power our bodies? While I don't want to attribute my motivation to pursue biological engineering to cancer, I guess it is a part of it. I desperately want to understand the disease, to discover to secrets and find a way to use its destruction against it. But I think I am more inspired by my friends and their parents, those who faced an impossible, horrifying disease with grace and bravery. I want to find answers for them. Biological engineering, to me, is about manipulating biological functions, processes, phenomena that have existed since the beginning of time to find the answer to modern unsolvable problems like cancer or Alzheimer’s: so, biological engineers are almost scientific archeologists, scouring the inner workings of organisms and humans and cells to find hidden answers. I believe that if we understand more about the systems and cells that power us, we will learn how to optimize their health and longevity, and find the cures to diseases that remain incurable. Beyond all, I want to give more life, more time, and more hope to all those who hear the word "cancer" every day.