As a benefactor of the AstraZeneca vaccine, I sought to pay my debt through vaccinology research. However, the pandemic proved even the best vaccines fail without prudent governance. John Locke brings me to the realm of public health governance where I dived deep from historical philosophy like Locke's self-ownership or Judith Buteler's bodily vulnerability to modern historic events like Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) or divergent COVID-19 outcomes in the US and Singapore democratic states. Explore how I argue against Locke, with Locke and add on to his ideology that bodily interdependence is a state-resident communication and vice versa and must extend beyond an emergency by ensuring decent living standards for residents. Living under both socialism and democracy, I hope to redesign institutional check-and-balance frameworks that break the panic-neglect cycle of global health funding. The message I want to advocate is "Politics must learn what biology has always known."

If the periodic table is chemistry's shiniest treasure, the genetic code is biology's backbone. Fascinated by their intersection, I joined CenTaD at Hwa Chong Institution, researching amino-acid reduced Schiff base permutations to combat cancer. Eagerly, I proposed expanding my four-amino-acid nickel project to twenty. Dr. Tan reined me in: "Focus on depth, not breadth."

Months of tracking permutations yielded nothing until Glutamine sparked a pellucid lattice under my flashlight. Overjoyed, I envisioned research fairs. Then came verification. My heart sank. By over-acidifying, I hadn't forged a novel complex; I had simply recrystallized the reactant. I recorded my missteps carefully, passing the data down so my juniors could find that elusive gem. Drug development is a punishing, often futile landscape, never a bed of roses. Yet, I balance this reality with fierce optimism. For underrepresented communities like Vietnam, breakthroughs demand unshakeable resilience to dismantle error until truth is won.

Seeking to understand disease at a molecular level, I explored how gene editing could bring targeted, preventive therapies to underserved populations. Reading hundreds of pages of research wasn't as instantly rewarding as solving a math equation or embroidering a flower, but I knew it was necessary to do the greatest good. Because Southeast Asians face a high incidence of this genetic disease, I felt a flaming passion to reduce their immense medical and financial burdens. I had great fun designing a custom therapy to cover past loopholes, naming it "Mutation-specific Beta-globin Homology-Directed Repair," and even engineered my own DNA sequence for Cas9 targeting. Based on my proposed testing phases, I project that with a Master's in Genetic Engineering, this technology could achieve approval by 2035.

Closing my window against NEA's thermal fogging made me wonder: is this investment wasteful? The Dengue Slayers Challenge showed me that battling dengue in tropical Asia's dense urban heat requires smarter community prevention, not just reactive treatment. Visiting Project Wolbachia, even placing my hand in a cage of male mosquitoes, inspired my team to complement NEA's strategy of producing infertile Aedes female mosquitoes.

Our team designed a reusable trap using lactic acid to attract Aedes mosquitoes, microwaves to immobilize them, and an immunoassay layer to detect the dengue NS1 protein, instantly alerting authorities. Presenting this to NEA, we learned from other innovative solutions like the winning portable scent device that deters mosquitoes. This experience taught me that public health must democratise vector control, empowering consumers to participate actively rather than passively enforcing measures. Moving forward, I want to optimize our biosensor for multi-serotype detection and scale it to under-resourced, endemic regions like Vietnam.