Motivation Letter Writing for PhD

[Mazid1989]

I have written a Motivation Letter for my PhD application. I need someone to evaluate my writing whether this could be improved or I can go with that. Suggestions are highly welcomed:


Thank you for reading my letter. I am taking this opportunity to express my motivation to be a candidate for the PhD position in the project “Role of c-Maf expressing regulatory T cells in cancer immunosuppression” under your supervision at the Laboratory of Immunology of ULB. I introduce myself as a graduate from University of Antwerp, Belgium;where I pursued Master’s in Comparative Morphology under the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. Passion for being a researcher is in my DNA, I figured it out early of my academic life when I realized that I only feel immense happiness if I can outperform in the academic results and when I can solve aquestion about complex biological system of our body that emanates in my thought spontaneously when the curiosity get better of me to understand it. Indeed, this intense enthusiasm of exploring the hidden unearthed things of our body directed my career path towards the challenge of PhD.

Since my under graduation I found Immunology as a highly fascinating and interesting topic. I remember the feelings of wonder,excitement and amazement the first time Immune system was explained to me during the Immunology course of undergraduate study in Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. It was only then did I truly appreciate how nature created the animal body and made a defence system that protects us from millions of microorganisms surrounding us. My amazement grew over time and I was inspired to continue my study as a Master’s student in the Department of Pathology after finishing graduation with top second rank. It was the Immunopathology course when I got to know the details about regulatory T cell while making a critical analysis of a review article “The tumour microenvironment in B cell lymphomas” as a part of course assignment, I was astonished to know that some cells of the immune system evolved to suppress the defensive function of other cells even favour the tumor progression. Albeit my master’s dissertation “----------------” dealt with the pathological lesions of a viral infection but not directly related to immunology, I wanted to conduct immunohistochemical analysis to locate the viral particles in the tissue and to investigate the immune cellular action against the virus, but due to the limitation of funding and laboratory equipments, I had to be disappointed.

Meanwhile, I got the privilege to study in European Master’s program in the field of Biomedical Science. Here I had the opportunity to enhance my knowledge in basic life science topics, particularly exposure to the exclusive lectures by Prof. Steven van Chruchten on the molecular regulations of embryo fetal development introduced me to the proteins and signalling molecules which are responsible for cell cycle, cell growth, proliferation, differentiation and organogenesis. This course provided me the clue that the functions of cells are regulated by the different signalling molecules whose abnormalities consequence disease progression including cancers. Collectively reckoning my theoretical knowledge and academic background, I carefully pondered over my interest and determined my focus on tumor immunology for doing higher degree research. I materialized it while choosing my dissertation topic that was hosted at the Laboratory of Cell Biology under the Department of Molecular Medicine and MedicalBiotechnology of the University of Napoli, Italy. The dissertation projectfocused on understanding the STING (Stimulator of Interferon Gene) signalling pathway; a gene recently emerged as an important protein having regulatory role in Innate Immunity, Autoimmune diseases and Cancer Immunity. My responsibility was to make STING knockout from THP1 cells using CRISPR/Cas9 mediated Lentiviral Transduction procedure and to study the effect of STING in monocyte to macrophage differentiation after treating with PMA. While working on this thesis, I studied a lot about cancer immunity and immunotherapeutic approaches and discovered that the immunosuppressive microenvironment is the major obstacle for successful immunotherapy and regulatory T cell is the major contributor of immunosuppressive microenvironment. Ultimately, this thesis work has developed an unquenchable interest to follow my PhD research on T_Reg cells in order to further extend the knowledge about it. Therefore, getting an opportunity to pursue my PhD in this topic would be a great advantage to implement my career goal.

I feel that I have required knowledge, skills and expertise to contribute to this project. Apart from the knowledge of latest scientific advancement on regulatory T cells that I follow regularly by reading published articles, I could offer my CRISRPR/Cas9 gene editing skills, DNA/RNA extraction, PCR, Gel Electrophoresis, SDS-PAGE, Flow cytometry and Immunofluorescence skills as well as the experience of hematopoietic and stem cell culture techniques that I got during Internship at the Justus Leibig Universitat Giessen, Germany. In return, I will have the avail of adding single cell transcriptomics and imaging techniques in my skill sets. In this opportunity, as a young scientist, with the availability of top-level research facilities offered, opportunity to present my work in scientific seminars, close contact and networking with the world renowned researchers and scientists, I will have deep experiences to exploit and use many advanced knowledge and skills to pursue future research on Tumor and immune cell cross talk.

In mypast academic achievements, I demonstrated myself as an excellent researcher. Iattained more than 85% marks in both the Master thesis I conducted before. I have two scientific publications in peer reviewed journals. I was always among the top 5% achievers in the final academic result. Besides, I am highly flexible, committed and responsible to my work. I am the person who likes to take the leadership of the work, feel as an entrepreneur and whose mistake or irresponsibility will have a big impact in the society. My biggest strength isthe critical thinking ability, punctuality and the ability to work under pressure to meet the deadlines. Moreover, the joined European Masters Program in four Universities of the four different European countries have increased my communication and collaborative skills to unknown heights that your lab couldget certain advantages.

[Rover_KE]

Welcome to the forum, Mazid.

The first thing you need to do is use Edit Post to insert spaces between the pairs of words which have been run together by the copy and paste process,

I have underlined the first few examples of this; there are many more.

[emsr2d2]

While you're fixing those problems, you should also add empty line breaks between paragraphs. At the moment, that is just a huge block of text that no one is going to want to read.

[Mazid1989]

Welcome to the forum, Mazid.

The first thing you need to do is use Edit Post to insert spaces between the pairs of words which have been run together by the copy and paste process,

I have underlined the first few examples of this; there are many more.

Thanks a lot. I have edited.

[Mazid1989]

While you're fixing those problems, you should also add empty line breaks between paragraphs. At the moment, that is just a huge block of text that no one is going to want to read.

I have done that. Thanks

[teechar]

1- What's the application deadline?
2- Were you given any guidelines (word limit, areas to cover, etc.)?

[Mazid1989]

1- What's the application deadline?
2- Were you given any guidelines (word limit, areas to cover, etc.)?

The Application deadline is in December. There is no word limit. I would highly appreciate your kind suggestion. The following topics should be included..
1. Why I am interested in this project?
2. What is my motivation for PhD?
3. Why you think you are suitable for this project?
4. Is this project comply with your future career plan?

[teechar]

4. Is this project comply with your future career plan?

I take it that's your paraphrase and not the original instruction. It's ungrammatical and unnatural. I suppose you meant to write something like "Is this project in line with your future career plan?"
You don't seem to have covered that part. If that's the case, then post a short paragraph below about it.

[Mazid1989]

I take it that's your paraphrase and not the original instruction. It's ungrammatical and unnatural. I suppose you meant to write something like "Is this project in line with your future career plan?"
You don't seem to have covered that part. If that's the case, then post a short paragraph below about it.

Thanks for your suggestion. Yes I noticed the mistake. BTW, I am afraid of the grammar and appropriateness of the vocabolary. Could you please suggest any improvement in the main text?

[teechar]

Write that extra paragraph, and I'll help you with the letter.
I also note that you've posted a very similar version on at least one more forum.
https://www.englishforums.com/Englis...pgrwx/post.htm

Please do not post the same question simultaneously to more than one forum. Doing so wastes our valuable time. Instead, post your question to one forum and wait for replies. If you're not satisfied with those replies, you can try another forum, but please indicate in your thread that you've already asked the same question elsewhere (provide a link), and outline why you were not satisfied with the answers you received already.