Question: Why did you decide to become a scientist and focus on the feild Biology?

Elliot Jokl answered on 11 Jun 2016:

Hello and thanks for the great question!

I think what drew me to science is that it has a powerful ability to explain how things work and why things happen. The best part is that we can sometimes use these explanations to find ways to do lots of very important things. If we figure out how a disease makes you ill, we might be able to cure it. If we can figure out how to make cleaner sources of energy, we can reduce our impact on the environment. All of these important changes and discoveries happen because someone had the curiosity to ask a question, and the patience (and sometimes luck!) to figure out the answer. Questions are a very powerful thing!

So when I decided to go into science, it was my hope that the questions I ask and the things I discover might be able to help people.

As to why I chose Biology, the short answer is that it is just the area I find most interesting! In particular I like learning about how diseases work – I think learning about what happens when something goes wrong in your body is really cool. This kind of research also has a good chance of helping people with these diseases in the future.