Tackling
Cancer Research as a Chemist and a Biologist
Mohamed Al Sharif is a Verrazano alum, Class
of 2018. He majored in Biology with a minor in Arabic, and is a fan of
complicated questions, in and outside of research!
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| Mohamed, back row, at CSI's Undergraduate Research Conference with research team |
Since my first year at college, I have been actively
involved in two independent research studies. While taking a General Chemistry
course in my first semester at CSI, my professor invited me to conduct research
in her laboratory during the summer. My research involved performing
computer-based simulations to study the interactions between biomolecules. My
project later on advanced to study the transfer free energies of drugs that
potentially target cancer cells and cells involved in Alzheimer’s disease.
However, since chemistry and biology are intertwined, I wanted to additionally perform
research in a biology laboratory to correlate between theoretical data obtained
from my chemistry research project with actual data obtained from a laboratory
in biology, and I did! The following semester, I started working in a
laboratory that studies the effects of anti-cancer agents derived from plant
compounds on cervical cancer cells. It always felt rewarding to obtain data that was promising
in the field of cancer. Additionally, being awarded the CSI Undergraduate
research award twice, the Dean of Science and Technology Undergraduate Research
Fellowship twice and an NSF Research Fellowship in Biochemistry, Biophysics and
Bioengineering, supported my research. I am most proud of earning authorship on
an article published in a scientific journal for the contributions I have made
to these studies. Knowing that my dedication and commitment to research will
provide a solution to a major health issue has increased my passion for
conducting research. I am confident that during the time I have been involved in research, I
have developed laboratory and critical thinking skills that will allow me to plan
and carry out future experiments independently and effiecntly.
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