The Family Curse Every family has a curse, and mine is no different. My father's bloodline carries PKD: Polycystic Kidney Disease. I did not ask to be born with it, just as my father had not, but genetics had other ideas. This disease has taken my grandfather and my father's health. At the end of my first knowledge of my father's disease, as he lay with my aunt's kidney transplanted inside his body, I knew I wanted to be a doctor. My mother's father was a doctor; my mother is a nurse; my own father is a doctor as well. The profession runs in my blood and in my eyes it is one way to lift the curse. Since my early days in elementary school I have been fixated with the study of clinical medicine. My strongest interests have always been in biology, specifically in the field of genetics. As a result of my outside reading over the years as well as new knowledge I have gained from my AP Biology class, I am beginning to see that the field of genetics is the answer to the endless pain, suffering, and untimely death that plagues this world. Something needs to change, and that something, I believe, involves genetic therapy and manipulation. The sequences of nucleic acids, the basic building blocks of life, hold the answer. These chemicals dictate the way our body is made and how it functions; even the most minute change can have disastrous effects. For example: sickle cell anemia, a deadly disorder involving the deformation of red blood cells, is the result of a reverse chain of a few nucleic acids. Only a few nucleic acids in the human genome can be enough to determine if someone will live a healthy, proactive life or if that individual will be severely restricted, unable to carry sufficient amounts of oxygen. This is something that I refuse to accept. It is my dream to one day tell my father that I will be able to take a simple pill to correct the disorder that he involuntarily gave me, thereby banishing the illness fo...