In Chapter 3 of 10 in her 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, health economist and comparative effectiveness researcher Clara Soh Williams shares her motivation to study molecular biophysics and biochemistry while at Yale University. Learning about Mad Cow disease teaches Soh the interdependence of understanding molecular chemical structure - taught in biochemistry - and molecular shape - taught in biophysics. Soh holds an MPA in Public Health Finance from New York University and a BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University. View more videos at http://www.captureyourflag.com Erik Michielsen: What made you decide to study a hybrid of biology, chemistry, and physics at Yale University? Clara Soh: So, I was a molecular biophysics and biochemistry major. I like to tell people I couldn’t decide which science so I majored in all of them – biology, chemistry, and physics. Really, one of the things that drew me to that field is that biochemistry tells you how molecules are put together, their chemical structure, and biophysics tells you what their shape is like. Form and function can’t be divorced from each other. You can’t know an amino acid sequence if you don’t know how the protein is folded. And one of the most interesting things that I learned is that Mad Cow disease is associated with prion so it is a totally normal protein that just folds incorrectly. So a protein that could be very beneficial and essential for your life if it just takes a wrong turn somewhere it clogs your brain up, it makes it all spongy with holes and you turn into a mad cow and die. I felt you can’t study one aspect and not the other. I guess I’m a little greedy in knowledge that way and wanted to know everything.

• published: 08 Dec 2010
• views: 2882