Make this year's applications count.

Names redacted.

Q1 · WHY THIS COURSE

A selective medical work placement at University Hospital, where I shadowed Dr on the cystic fibrosis (CF) ward, showed me how biochemistry in action transforms lives. In clinical practice, I encountered the use of CFTR modulators, specifically Kaftrio. While CFTR modulators do not fix the underlying genetic issue, they improve the function of the faulty chloride channels, which are the core of the disorder. One patient who had once been given a life expectancy of 30 was now 40, and was even expecting a child.

Q2 · HOW YOUR STUDIES PREPARED YOU

For my Chemistry EE, I investigated the degradation of paracetamol under varying humidity conditions. I built saturated salt chambers to maintain specific relative humidities and used colorimetry with FeCl3 tests to detect paracetamol’s phenolic degradation products. Having to improvise apparatus… forced me to think critically about method choice and limitations. For example, how the narrower range of visible light might leave certain UV-absorbing degradation products undetected, and how to account for such errors.

My hands-on encounter with pharmacogenomics in drug selection shifted my focus from asking “Does it work?” to “For whom and how reliably?”