BE 20.109(F19) Class blog

It’s official - we survived the research proposals ( & I even managed to breathe this time)! To be fair I feel this assignment was really useful for getting practice in how to go about coming up with a research plan. We had to break down a mountain of a problem into a bite sized chunk and come up with a series of practically feasible experiments to tackle the real-world question. It was exciting to listen to everyone’s amazing proposals - I can only imagine what my 109 fam will go on to accomplish in their professional careers! I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them all, even when that entails commiserating at 1am in stud 5 about the massive amount of work we have left to do. Some academic environments can be cutthroat but my experience with others in 109 has been anything but. While some friendly rivalry exists between teams to produce the “prettiest” data, all in all it’s amazing how supportive everyone is. From memes and words of encouragement in the group chat, to h

A few things and post-proposal thoughts:  - distinguishing between slugs and snails is really a lot of thinking. the words are really similar - the wound healing schematic in old papers are so ugly. I'm so glad bio-render exists now- hopefully figures and schematics will be better looking from now on.  - a lesson learned from journal club: have supplemental figures/evidence prepared for the Q/A section - I wonder how many times I said um this time...thankfully I won't find out b/c this wasn't recorded :) - Helvetica Nueu is really a nice font !! it makes everything look sciencey - snail slime really is the GOAT - I forgot that saliva exists in the mouth...oops - it turns out SNAIL (the gene, not the animal) is also a regulator of embryonic development!! people really do name proteins weird things!! - doing a lot of background reading is really interesting when the topic is cool!! - the hardest part is pi

I would be the first to say I haven't had an original thought in at least two years. Therefore, coming up with a research proposal was particularly difficult because I had to rely on my own ability to generate experiments that no one had thought of before. I would say that the homework that had us look novel research was super helpful in coming up with ideas on my own, because I realized that coming up with your own idea isn't as important as being able to build on someone else's idea. This project was one of the first times I was allowed to just focus on something that I wanted to. That was wild, because it gave me an insight on how life could be if I was interested in what I did every day. In terms of the actual presentation, Christy came in super clutch for this. Managing both 20.320 and 20.109 was really tough for me over the past few weeks, because there was so much to do with both. However, the background research she did while I was working on my implementation p

Dear past me... You'll never get the chance to read this... because you no longer exist but... You made it! You have officially almost conquered 109. All that's left is the mini report! I'm proud of you... Here are some updates from this semester: You've fallen head over heels in love with Kombucha (pineapple peach and raspberry lemon specifically. Playin' it safe). You may have developed a caffeine addiction (or is it just that caffeinated drinks taste good)... but it's okay! You'll detox over IAP. You got your mojo back! Girl... this week was rough but you've been dressing nice or whatever You made a lot of friends in this class... and you just unleashed all your weirdness on them... Lab was like home away from home... And I guess you also gained a lot of confidence in you abilities as a bio-engineer and scientific communicator or whatever The research proposal thought is could beat you and you won so now rest and recover. I love you ve

Just a week ago I submitted graduate applications to a bunch of bioengineering programs across MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Mayo Clinic, UCSF, and UC Berkeley. In my personal statement, I talked about the promise of viral gene therapy coupled with genome editing technologies to find new therapies for genetic diseases. Through this class I have been able to dive deeper into this field through extensive literature searching, journal club presentations, proposal pitches, and hands-on experiments utilizing CRISPR. I have learned so much about communication in biology/bioengineering and think that the ideas discussed in this class for effectively presenting science will be extremely useful to me moving forward in my career.

The research article was hard. but the research proposal is way way way way way way way harder. we had to go through the literature for weeks, and it was hard to finally choose a project that we are all interested in. we all liked ice cream. jk it wasnt us, collin did. and collin was lactose intolerant. so we want to help him eat ice cream. anyway, the point is, i learned so much during this assignment. even though i had experience with research in my UROP,  coming up with your own ideas and developing a rigorous method is a totally different thing. i am glad we did it and i have no doubt that this helps me understand what an actual scientist/ engineer does! i want to thank the staff for walking us through this whole project (and the amazing snack!!) and everyone in the class for being sooo supportive. that is all and i am looking forward to taking more classes with yall!! <3