Biochemistry Anonymous

Opening the refrigerator door four years ago to feed my sourdough starter, I was shocked to discover that it had erupted out of its glass jar. It baffled me- how and why could adding just a half cup of flour and 100 milliliters of water cause so much action?

Finding answers in the first unit of my AP Biology class (Chemistry of Life), I realized that biochemistry could satisfy these curiosities. So, I reached out to professors during my summer vacation in India, interning at Bangalore University to synthesize the drug Methisazone and determine its effects. Through the wet and dry lab research, I learned how to use tools like thin-line chromatography and molecular docking to understand how chemical drugs affect biological processes, showing me that biochemistry is the perfect unity of hands-on creation and real world application.

Through biochemistry, what once appeared so simple, like feeding sourdough, became birthplaces of comprehending complexity. It's the idea that each combination of elements has a unique structure, causing an infinite array of tailored biological functions-so I am constantly learning, because there are always more structures and functions to explore. For example, through the biochemistry unit of Advanced...