PROPOSAL FOR STUDY

Describe your reasons for pursuing graduate study and your academic and professional interests and goals. Attach
additional pages if necessary.

I graduated roughly four year ago, from the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, which is a highly ranked engineering
school in Pakistan. On my graduation, Ultimus Inc, one of Pakistan’s largest software development company, hired
me for their Sofware Development Group at their core facility in Islamabad. I spent the next four years, working on
different types of software development technologies and finally left the company as Senior Software Development
Engineer. During my stay at Ultimus, I was nominated as “Ultimus Achiever” and “Ultimus Exceller” for two
consecutive years, 2004, 2005. “Exceller” is the highest distinction which can be given to an engineer at Ultimus.
The single reason for leaving this commercial job was to complete my studies and serve my nation. I realized that I
had sufficient development experience with me and that I should now study for my specialization.
I have been searching and looking closely at the contemporary research areas and the one which interested me was
the bio-technology and bio-informatics. This revolution in technology is probably going to be the biggest since the
industrial revolution itself and it is my ambition to help my people and my country enter this new biotechnology age
in an appropriate way.
On looking around for biotechnology hubs in the region, one finds out the great advances Korea has made in this
field. From the number of publications to the news appearances, it became obvious to me that Korea offers some
very exciting prospects for a specialization in this field. Henceforth, it was a natural progression of thought that I
made up my mind to opt for bio-informatics in Korea.
Software Development, itself is bread and butter for me. I live it and I sleep it! It is something which has grown out
from just being a profession for me and into my passion. I have been working on technologies which are as different
in purpose as Prolog and ASP.net and as powerful as Visual C++ to Matlab. I long for a chance to learn new
technologies and paradigms in software development. On the other hand, Bio-Informatics is the perfect marriage of
software design/development with its cutting edge application to contemporary issues at hand. Specifically, the area
of genomics and proteomics encompasses a vast arena of applications for mankind. From finding cures for different
types of cancers to growing artificial organs for the handicapped, it’s probably the noblest application of informatics
till now.
In UST, I am planning to make a study on the top-down proteomics related to the high-resolution mass
spectrometer, FT-ICR/MS. Since year 2004, Korea Basic Science Institute is developing FT-ICR/MS in
collaboration with NHMFL institute in USA. Differently from the other mass spectrometers, the high magnetic field
FT-ICR/MS can measure the molecular weights of intact proteins and their fragment ions and it allows us to make a
research on top-down proteomics. Top-down approach is the way to overcome the limit of bottom-up approach that
contains the ambiguities in protein identification and in post translational modification analysis. While the top-down
approach by FT-ICR/MS has many advantages in proteome analysis, it generates very complicated mass spectral
data and requires new algorithms for the accurate analysis. I would like to find out the analysis algorithms and to
build the new data system appropriate for the high-resolution mass spectrometer, FT-ICR/MS. In this spring, I have
been collaborating with Dr. Jong Shin Yoo and Dr. Kyung Hoon Kwon at Korea Basic Science Institute and got an
experience in making computer programs on proteome data analysis tools. I am much interested in the new research
field of proteome informatics and it will be a dream come true, to work with such highly professional and dedicated
people.

I intend to perform research at the top-most level in this field, and contribute to the bio-analytical science itself, to
its community and to the human race in general. Also later on, I intend to introduce bio-analytical research in
Pakistan and setup a group or project which can help my native land and its people, make good use of this
technology.

I certify that the completed above statements I have written are true and current.

Signature Date 9th May 2006