Aline

Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology

SoP Prompt: Provide a brief statement of your scientific and professional interests and objectives. Include a description of your past accomplishments that are not evident from the examination of other documents submitted, including any research in progress. We are interested in how your personal background has equipped you to work within diverse research communities, the most influential science or engineering experience you have had, and in situations where you faced and overcame a challenge. The statement must be written by the applicant in English. It must not be written in another language and translated for the applicant by another person.

I was taught to always reach for ginger tea before ibuprofen. In the small, rural Brazilian town where I grew up, pharmaceuticals were always used as a last resort. My agronomist parents were well-versed in herbal remedies, many of which were generational traditional practices. When moving to the United States, I learned to respect the conventional use of synthetic drugs but was frequently confused about the cultural and health differences between natural and synthetic medications. This curiosity grew when I joined my high school’s Science Olympiad team, studying and competing in subjects such as genetics and chemistry, in tandem with creatively engineering working models of vehicles such as boats and helicopters. After obtaining a full-ride academic scholarship to Iowa State University, I confidently decided to pursue a B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering to jumpstart my scientific career.

My time at Iowa State has been spent carefully developing and validating my interest in research, which has prepared me for graduate study in Chemical Engineering at Caltech. My research involvement began within my first month as a college student. Since then, I have worked with six different research professors. My laboratory positions equipped me to learn proper experimental procedures and machinery operations, but they differed in how involved I could become in the research; however, I was never able to determine the future of the research and was left unfulfilled. This motivated me to join Dr. Sashital’s laboratory to conduct my own project with the assistance of Ph.D. student Yukti Dhingra.

Dr. Sashital’s lab studies the function of RNA-protein complexes involved in CRISPR-Cas systems by understanding the activation of CRISPR systems in surveying the complex milieu of the cell and targeting invasive nucleic acids for destruction. I have struck a new path in the lab by venturing into the investigation of newly discovered and uncharacterized immune systems such as Septu, and my work will be the first to characterize the biochemical activity of this system. My research goal is to determine how the Septu proteins work together to provide defense. To test this, I employed Gibson cloning techniques to build the individual proteins and their corresponding co-expression. Then, I transformed the proteins into E. Coli cells and studied them in vitro using phosphate and enzyme-coupled assays to determine whether the two proteins indeed function as ATPases and helicases. Challenges were presented during protein expression, which required a methodical structural analysis of the proteins’ predicted AlphaFold heterotetramer models to determine folding habits. Due to the Septu system’s dimerization habits and corresponding hydrophobic R-groups, we modified the plasmids and cloning techniques used to further advance in the experiment.

It was through my involvement in Dr. Sashital’s lab that I became familiar with Caltech due to Dr. Gözde Demirer’s talk at the 5th International Conference of CRISPR Technologies. I also enjoyed her papers on the prospect of administering CRISPR reagents to flowers and testing in vivo sgRNA efficacy with nanomaterials to do so. My interest in Dr. Demirer’s lab encouraged further research on other CCE professors and I was amazed by the ingenuity and creative problem-solving performed by Drs. Shu-ou Shan and Frances Arnold in seeking solutions to high-impact issues. This further encouraged me to apply to Caltech for graduate study.

In addition to my research involvement in Dr. Sashital’s laboratory, I sought out and excelled at other opportunities, and my hard work has not gone unnoticed. Academically, I have received top honors from the Chemical Engineering Department every semester since my freshman year, earning me several scholarships. My sophomore year, I was a First-Year Honors leader and taught a class of 12 students. Because of my success in the classroom, the director of the Honors Program offered me a paid position to teach 2 leadership classes and give trainings to 72 FHP leaders about emotional intelligence. And last year, I took a stand-up comedy course and was asked to be the opening act for two professional comedians based on my performance in the class. These experiences granted me the confidence to present my ideas and to work collaboratively in a team towards a common goal.

Opportunities didn’t always come easily, however. The summer after my sophomore year, my internship was cancelled because of the COVID pandemic. Motivated to continue advancing my studies and research abilities, I began working at the start-up biotechnology company Skroot Laboratory Inc., founded by the Chemical Engineering professor Dr. Nigel Reuel. Working at Skroot allowed me to build the technical skills needed to continue performing biological research. I learned to quantitatively study cell growth patterns and how to predict them based on environmental and chemical perturbations, and their effects on the cells’ emitted electromagnetic waves and corresponding frequencies. Using this knowledge, I helped design and 3D print the sensor prototypes and used them to perform optimization experiments.

Conducting my own research project allowed me to more deeply explore the subject matters I enjoy most. While my classes never directly taught me the biochemical differences between natural and synthetic drugs, my research involvement gave me tools to seek more information. My involvement in biological and biochemistry research helped me combine my Brazilian agrarian lifestyle with an industrial one, allowing me to conjoin the different ways I was taught to think in order to solve problems. I eagerly seek to continue finding innovative ways to approach research questions at Caltech. I am interested in studying gene expression and regulation in plants to synthetically reprogram their behavior to create solutions to dietary and sustainable issues. I am also fascinated by genetic and epigenetic protein-DNA interactions, as well as gene editing and cryo-EM techniques.

It is because of my wide range of interests that I am applying to the Chemical Engineering Ph.D. program at Caltech. This program’s cutting-edge technology, facilities, and a community of innovative thinkers will allow me to progress in my learning and succeed at the highest possible level in my future research endeavors. I also look forward to working in a collaborative environment that encourages leadership and teamwork. Due to my research interests, I am most interested in working in the laboratories of Drs. Gözde Demirer, Shu-ou Shan, Linda Hsieh Wilson, Douglas Rees, and Frances Arnold; however, I aim to be an open-minded and diligent contributor to any research group that I’m given the opportunity to work with.

Thank you for considering my application to the Chemical Engineering graduate program at Caltech.