Practice Makes Perfect
Ghulam Dastgir is the second of the two pre-med students from Brooklyn College who were recently awarded 2008 Salk Scholarships, eight of which are bestowed annually by CUNY as a tribute to Dr. Jonas E. Salk, the 1934 City College alum who developed the Polio vaccine in 1955. Candidates must be nominated by pre-med advisors at each CUNY college based on the student’s qualifications and research work. Next semester, Ghulam will begin attending SUNY Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine in East Flatbush.
     I was born in Pakistan and came to New York at the age of seven. I attended Midwood High School. After four years at BC, I will graduate in May. I will complete four years of Medical School at SUNY Downstate and then do my residency.
     For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to go into medicine. I am especially drawn to the social aspect of medicine, which involves interacting with patients on a one-to-one basis. At the same time, I would like to do research, because it is the cornerstone of medical breakthroughs and discoveries.
     The BA-MD program encourages students to become involved in the community. I volunteered at the Biology Department at Midwood High School for a semester, working with lab students and helping them with projects. For three semesters I volunteered at Edward R. Murrow High School, tutoring students in the sciences. For the past two semesters I’ve been working with the Inclusion Program at Murrow, helping students with developmental problems with reading, math skills, and projects.
     I was fortunate to be able to do research on pancreatic cancer at SUNY Downstate Medical Center while in high school. At Brooklyn College, my current research project involves studying the molecular mechanisms of infectious disease.  Even though most infectious diseases are not the primary source of concern in the U.S., they afflict large segments of the impoverished population in other parts of the world, killing millions of people each year.
     As I began conducting research, I was amazed by the fact that changes in the smallest of things can have the greatest of impacts, that changes at the molecular level can impact the health and lives of millions of people. 
     I did my research project under the guidance of Professor Richard Magliozzo of the Chemistry Department. 
     What I’ve learned from all this is that practice makes perfect and that there’s a lot of groundbreaking work to be done in the research field. This is part of the scientific spirit – you keep trying new approaches, or you start looking at things differently. But eventually you’ll get it right.

Translation: "We're trying to explain how this enzyme works."