Gaining Rich Research Experiences In Route to Graduate School
It’s graduate school admissions season. And after some 5 undergraduate research internships, 20 PhD program applications, and 16 acceptance letters, İdil Demiralp will be pursuing a PhD this fall at Scripps Research in California. Her path from Bogazici University in Turkey, to the Amgen Scholars Program at ETH-Zurich, and now to Scripps Research has been forged in a deep passion to pursue research in chemical biology that will lead to new disease therapeutics.
That passion for science started early with curiosity about the natural world and then built as Demiralp watched science TV shows and read science books. “Disassembling objects to grasp their inner workings and then reconstructing them to innovate became second nature, fueling my curiosity further,” she recalls. She was able to feed those interests at a science-focused high school, culminating in her school’s team winning first place in Turkey’s Destination Imagination contest. “That ignited a shift toward greater creativity, reinforcing my dream of becoming a scientist dedicated to uncovering creative solutions,” she says.
Demiralp would go on to double major in chemistry and molecular biology with genetics at Bogazici University. From her second semester of university on, she would prioritize research internships, starting with cancer research at Koc University (Tuğba Bağcı Önder Lab), then computational chemistry research at her home institution (Viktorya Aviyente Lab), and protein gene regulation at ETH-Zurich as an Amgen Scholar (Stefanie Jonas Lab).
“The summer of 2022 as an Amgen Scholar was one of the most memorable periods of my life,” Demiralp says. “I was highly motivated to both explore and enjoy myself to the fullest while also dedicating myself diligently to laboratory work.”
A high point was her extensive travel throughout Switzerland and Europe, including to Paris, Milan, and Barcelona. But ultimately it was the science that proved pivotal to Demiralp’s trajectory. Working in the lab “significantly bolstered my confidence and competence in a myriad of techniques,” she says.
“Each international experience broadened my perspective.”
-İdil Demiralp
After participating in Amgen Scholars and driven by a desire to explore US institutions, Demiralp secured a fully funded internship at Stephen Fried’s Lab at Johns Hopkins University, where she worked with protein folding and purification techniques. She then returned to Bogazici to continue working on drug delivery and biomaterials in Rana and Amitav Sanyal’s Lab.
“Each international experience broadened my perspective,” she says. “Through these research experiences, I gained a clearer understanding of my preferred research areas and learned how to approach research projects with the right mentality. As a result, I could apply to graduate programs with a great skill set.”
Demiralp focused her graduate school applications on PhD programs in the United States. Many of the institutions waived her application fee because she was an Amgen Scholar. Her biggest asset in this process were statements of purpose, which she tailored to the 20 individual schools to which she applied. She especially tuned them to match her research experiences to specific professors at each institution, and highlighted her contributions to the research literature thus far.
“Following advice from mentors, I adopted a ‘show, not tell’ approach, illustrating instances of perseverance such as detailing experiments that initially failed and how I overcame setbacks to achieve success,” Demiralp says. “Moreover, recommendation letters from supervisors at ETH Zurich, Johns Hopkins University, and my home institution, along with my international experiences, further bolstered my application.”
Demiralp credits much of her success in receiving 16 offers from grad schools to the Amgen Scholars Program, including the experience she gained in communications through presenting at the Europe symposium in Cambridge. “My participation in the Amgen Scholars Program and their workshops not only enhanced my ability to present effective posters, conducting research, and research opportunities in the field but also afforded me the opportunity to learn and grow alongside exceptional peers—an experience that was truly transformative for me,” she says.
In selecting Scripps Research for her PhD program, Demiralp was drawn, in part, to the institution’s extensive engagement with industry—looking to bridge her work in chemical biology to life-changing therapeutics in biotechnology. “Arriving at this decision was one of the most challenging choices I’ve encountered,” she says. “I devoted considerable effort to understanding the differences in environments, locations, and university life among my choices. I sought insights from many graduate students, seeking their opinions and experiences to inform my decision-making process.”
To those seeking PHD programs in the future, Demiralp says that self-belief is key. Without that, she would not have had the confidence to apply to so many programs. “I always hoped to get admission to these prestigious programs but never imagined it would happen,” she says. “However, I decided to take the chance and believe in my abilities. I believe that having research experience is paramount, which also helps you to understand what you really like and what you should expect.”
