Jungsik Yoo at Times, I Marvel How

Jungsik Yoo

At times, I marvel how far I have come. Ever since I was a young boy, under the influence of my father, a molecular biologist, I dreamed of researching genetically inherited diseases. Today, I live that reality in my current field of work and research as a graduate student in neuroscience.

Thus, long before most children, because of my early exposure to the field of biology, I was intimately aware that one's genetic inheritance could determine an individual's future physical and emotional health. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that I soon decided I was genetically coded to become a medical researcher. I will receive my Ph D. In the summer of 2006 in neuroscience. But my current studies in the field of genetics have also soberly reminded me of how far both my own learning and the field of genetics need to be stretched, before the objectives of genetic research into inherited diseases can be realized.

For my final Ph D. project I studied "William's syndrome" and "Down Syndrome" related molecules as well as the genetic history of these molecules. My research has provided me with exciting and fruitful experience. But it also showed me that my current training has, until recently, lacked an important, hands-on human element that the doctors in the field of medical seem to posses but I, a medical researcher in genetics do not. I often feet frustrated due to my lack of clinical knowledge of genetic diseases, much as I have strived, given the limits of my time, to fill in these perceived experiential gaps of my clinical experience.

I want my research in the field of genetics to focus more on the actual treatment and cures for the diseases being studied, rather than just the 'science' of such disease related molecules. Genetic diseases affect human beings, and although the body may be viewed as a 'machine,' it is a machine that the parents of afflicted children pour their lives and souls into, as they cry to medical and biological science to unlock the mysteries of what seems, to their eyes, quite baffling ailments.

I have concluded that the hands-on clinical experience only provided by a medical school education is necessary for me to fulfill the essential experiential element that is crucial to my future desired knowledge base and scope of research. Only medical school will provide me with critical experience that will give my research the desired added practical and human value.

At the end of my education, I hope to become a research doctor who combines clinical research in his study of genetic diseases. I seek to provide the science of genetics with a human face for it is, ultimately, the study of the human body, mind, and 'wiring' in the form of the human genetic code. I been the recipient of a 'Sensory Neuroscience Training Grant '(SNTG) fellowship funded by National institute of health (NIH) since the fall of 2004. Thus I am well aware of the critical role genetics plays in public health of the nation as well as of the field of medical science, because of this generous grant, and I will strive to add to this knowledge in all of my future research.