Cornell Interests Essay Anonymous

“And that,” said my allergist, pricking my back before moving a couple inches, selecting a new vial of food particle and repeating, “is why you react to nuts so strongly. We’re trying to see now if you’re allergic to anything else.” My back itched incessantly, but my mind was occupied. It was there, as I sat with pinpoint pricks crisscrossing my back, that my fascination with immunology was born.

This interest in the immune system stemmed from a lifelong curiosity for microbiology. My fascination with the unseen started in the first grade with a science fair project on environments conducive to mold growth on bread. A couple years later, I was diagnosed with food allergies to tree-nuts and became fixated on allergies and immunology, how and why our body reacted so strongly to these harmless substances. These areas have been a passion of mine ever since. I have shadowed my local allergist a few times and this has served to fuel my fascination, as well as attended multiple national Food Allergy Research conferences. I hope to utilize Cornell’s vast resources to explore additional methods for food allergy relief, such as the known oral tolerance induction that has had such success with peanut allergy. As I hope to pursue clinical...