A Snapshot of Bioengineering Past

The more I know about synthetic biology, the more I feel like it is this vast, unexplored territory that is both exciting and a little bit unsettling. On the one hand, better understanding how to engineer biology will allow us to potentially benefit an incredible amount. On the other, there is the fact that we currently lack that understanding, a fact that was emphasized over and over again in the in-class video about recombinant DNA research. 

I found that video to be really thought provoking. I heard strong arguments for both sides, and I could see why the debate would be so heated. But even though I am an avid supporter of science, I think that if I were a citizen in those early days, I would lean towards suppressing the research just out of fear and concern. 

Regardless, I think it is a good thing that there is generally some friction in getting change to occur in society. Even though it can be extremely frustrating, dissent serves as a sort of buffering mechanism to promote stability, a sort of critical thinking filter to make sure nothing catastrophic happens. (Or perhaps “sure” is bad word choice.) Having said that, however, I believe that society is always going to head in the direction of progress, in the direction of change, despite perhaps being slowed down by debate and dissent. And I think this is simply because people always want to strive for something better, and once we do obtain something better, we cannot go back.

So I think synthetic biology is definitely a growing field, but I feel like I haven’t gotten to see many examples of real-world applications. I mean, getting to see kangaroos imprinted on agar in a Petri dish is really cool, but it isn’t practical. Clearly, a camera takes a better photograph than light sensitive bacteria do. But maybe there are certain tasks that only bacteria do better, and it is these things that I think are particularly exciting. I would love to learn how to take advantage of biomaterials for their unique properties. Maybe also learn how they can save the world. That would be nice. 

But that’s just the delirium and slight sickness talking (incoherently). I hope to get a better grasp of bioengineering through the project, which I am very excited for!

Science and Society

I wasn’t expecting to be so interested in a 40-year-old video, but the class where we watched the old city council meeting was one of my favorite classes so far. It’s always interesting to compare today’s technology to technology from decades ago, but this video was especially interesting because my view was the complete opposite of the general public’s.

While this conversation concerning recombinant DNA has probably reached its expiration date, the arguments that the scientists were having with the politicians aren’t unique. This isn’t the first time that scientists have come up with ideas that the public doesn’t understand, and it definitely won’t be the last. Watching this video, I was thinking how similar these discussions were to the debate surrounding current controversial topics in science, for example, stem cell research, nuclear waste disposal, and containment in the BL4 lab in Roxbury. I’d like to think that I’d still be happy living near a BL4 facility, but after all, I am a scientist and I at least have some idea how the people who built the facility decided it was safe. It is very easy, when you don’t see things from a scientist’s perspective, to be concerned about decisions made from that point of view. Although I knew that the media and the public can often make a bigger deal out of issues like these than necessary, this video helped me realize how important it is that scientists communicate clearly with the public. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t realize Dr. Ptashne was being pretentious until other people mentioned it. Hopefully, I can learn to communicate my ideas without being condescending or confusing.

The Wrong Questions

When we watched the Cambridge City Council meeting from 1976 on recombinant DNA, I found it difficult to side with anyone.  Mayor Vellucci's questions were frustrating.  They did not appear to be founded in a large amount of knowledge about recombinant DNA, asked for certainty that science cannot guarantee simply because of the nature of science, and appeared to be either fear driven or fear driving (or maybe some combination of the two).  I do not know how I would have handled those questions as a scientist, but I assume that I would have felt trapped.
Yet I do not think that the questions were wrong.  Sure, I might have some minimal understanding of recombinant DNA that makes me view the meeting from a "come on this is ridiculous. You are almost stopping so much research with questions that can never be answered" perspective.  The passage of time and all of the new knowledge we now have further helps us view the council's actions critically. However, there are plenty of things I know nothing about.  I know very little about nuclear anything, and scientists could probably tell me that they wanted to do an experiment with it and I would not have any idea what they were saying and would probably accept "because science" as an answer.  That is when I want to the Velluccis.  There are plenty of scientific endeavors that I do not know enough about to judge whether or not they are dangerous.  As ridiculous as the questions might seem and as annoyed as the scientists might be at having to answer them, I want those questions posed.
That is what I need to remember. As I go forward with my education and research, I need to remember not to be so caught up in whatever I am doing that I begin to cast off questions from the public as ill-informed and a nuisance.  At the meeting, I thought the scientists for recombinant DNA were doing pretty well in the beginning, but then they grew frustrated and appeared more arrogant.  I agreed with their arguments more than the politicians, but not necessarily with their actions and mannerisms.
We need a middle-ground.  Politicians who are more aware of the scientific method and scientists who are more sympathetic to public concerns would create more effective debates and public policy. This is not some revolutionary thought, but it is one that I will try to keep with me as I begin to learn what it means to work in science.

Science, Policy, and Snowflakes

Watching that video from 1976 about the potential threat posed to Cambridge from biological labs was much more riveting than I thought it'd be. The intersection of science and policy in a debate is quite difficult. How do you explain your years of research and experience to a politician, in a succinct way, without coming off like an asshole? What would I have felt like as a politician, given the time period and circumstances? Would I have imagined the NIH working on the Manhattan BioProject? Would I have been as distrustful and scrutinizing as them? It's hard to say. Regardless, there's clearly a need for competent politicians who understand the scientific method, or scientist-turned-politicians who are articulate enough to shed light on topics that other politicians fear.
Enough about the video! These past two weeks have been pretty fun. I made agar gels and ran electricity through them... and things happened, kinda! Also, my modified e. coli took well to being colored like a snowflake. The latter part is an example of something I never imagined was possible with synthetic biology, but it goes to show me how much potential is lying in the field for the creation of novel genetic combinations and tools.

The Devil is in the Details-- and That's What Makes it Fun

In my last post, I mentioned how little I actually knew about bioengineering and how much I wanted to learn more. After another two weeks of 20.020, I am really excited about how my knowledge has progressed. I feel like I'm learning a lot, and the more I learn, the more enthusiastic I become about building upon that knowledge. It's really awesome to see how an intricate physical science can unite so beautifully with an engineering discipline in order to solve problems.

One thing that continues to amaze me is how the ideas behind our in-class experiments are even devised in the first place. It's crazy to think that someone woke up one morning and thought, "I want to take a picture with bacteria" and managed to develop a system to do just that. With my experience in engineering, I know that it must have took much longer and many more failures than just that in real life. These failures are often much more complex than the goopy mess of an electrophoresis system I managed to create, but you live and you learn (I think we didn't microwave it for long enough! It's something I want to try again on my own to see if I can get it right.).

On the subject of failures, I am realizing as class progresses that bioengineering is sort of unique in that biological systems are prone to a certain degree of unpredictability. As Ellen said when she skyped in, "the devil is in the details." A project may look great on paper, but the intricacies of biology mean that the systems are often much harder to execute than they are to plan. Unlike mechanical engineering where a mistake is usually easily identifiable as a malfunctioning part or piece of code, a failed biological system could be the result of any number of problems, some we may not even be familiar with yet. It poses a very interesting and unique challenge to the scientific mind, and it is a challenge that draws me to bioengineering as a field because of its complexity. As we progress into our own project designs over the next few weeks, I can't wait to delve further into the intricacies of biological design in order to see what the problem-solving approach looks like to a bioengineer.

A Broader Perspective

Wow - another two weeks already.  You know what they say; time flies when you're having fun.  In all seriousness though, this has definitely been one of my favorite classes so far this semester.  It started out a little slow for me because we started with material very similar to what we had already learned in iGEM but in the last two weeks we've started to branch out a little more.  In the back of our minds, we're still thinking about the impending, iGEM-esque 3 ideas presentation but the classwork has been taking a look at science and society which is an interesting perspective that I don't frequently consider in-depth.  Watching the recording of the Cambridge City Council meeting from the 70's regarding recombinant DNA research at Harvard was a huge eye opener as far as just how far biotechnology (and our perception of it) has come in the last few decades - especially considering how much room for development still remains.  It has also been really interesting to learn about the DIY bio movement and Genspace.  I'm a huge supporter of open source software and hardware, makerspaces and the like, so it's great to see that mentality spreading to the bioengineering side of things even though it does raise some interesting regulatory and ethical questions.  This increasing accessibility of biological tools is really cool to me personally because I remember only a few years ago reading books or watching TV shows where people were genetically engineering things and thinking how cool that was but then immediately thinking that there was no way I'd ever be able to do something like that - surely the technology isn't that good.  Sure we still have a ways to go but it is really awesome to think that I'm now at a place where I can fairly easily do something I used to think was out of reach.

Synthetic Biological System and Deep Thoughts

Between high walls, densely packed with neurons, sparks fly. Electrical signals and impulses race through neurons at the speed of light, enabling unprecedented computations. The center for creativity and biology is illuminated strongly, ablaze with impulses. New connections between neurons are being made. The inspiration for a biological system was nearing its inception.

That’s how I kind of wish my brain worked when I’m coming up with ideas for our biological system. In real life: my brain is a very still, uninspiring mass of gray matter. It just kind of sits there…and doesn’t produce ideas for biological systems.

The other day Natalie said something about viruses and I had a sudden brain blast for using a virus to implant a gene in adult cells that would provide the genetic information for human cells to begin producing cellulase whenever they received distress signals from other cells. This means that when other cells became infected and released distress signals, nearby cells would produce cellulase to catabolize the cellulose that makes up the viral capsid. I felt like a genius for all of a few hours before I realized I had entirely synthesized the notion that viruses had capsids made out of cellulose. According to Google, they’re made out of proteins. This was an example of one of many cool ideas I had that simply would never work as a project. Many of the ideas I have are things that either already exist or aren’t feasible. I really want my final biological system to be something genuinely clever that people haven’t really tried before. I would love to synthesize a cure to cancer, but I’m not really going to be able to come up with anything other researchers haven’t tried.

What would be really cool, in fact, would be if I were able to come up with a system and bring it over to my UROP and work on it there. My UROP supervisor always encourages experimentation with our ideas and I would be thrilled if I were able to propose my own project and work on it. To make sure my ideas were compatible with what the lab is used to handling, I asked my UROP supervisor what some of the major issues are in his specific area of study. He told me. I vaguely grasped what he was saying. And then I silently filed away everything he said into the “I’ll understand this better someday” drawer. It was a lot of biochemistry and things that I couldn’t come up with a solution to right now. For example, protein specific labeling. That’ s a thing people are trying to come up with. How? Beats me. I think for now I’ll just keep trying to come up with cool ideas until I find something viable. I’m pretty interested in the idea of using viruses to deliver genetic material. It seems to be something that has had some, but not too much research done on it, so there are likely still some areas that we could explore that researchers haven’t yet.

Something refreshing I realized today from talking to my UROP advisor was that as much as we like to hail our fancy microscopes and talk about the “organism whose parent was a computer,” we actually don’t know much about the world around us. My UROP supervisor was telling me about how there are a lot of situations in which we need to label a protein. The only method we have of doing it right now is putting the proteins in a solution with a chemical and hoping a good amount of the chemical binds on to it, but not too much.  This means that if too much binds on to one protein, it could eliminate its binding capabilities or nullify its charge or otherwise change its properties in an unpredictable way. It also means we are incapable of labeling just one protein out of many types. The idea that we are still using relatively crude methods to do something as essential as protein labeling is incredibly refreshing to me because it means we still know so little. If I lived in a world where we knew everything about everything, there would be no progress to be made; nothing to work towards. I would honestly get extremely bored, and that’s why I’m excited to be a part of a world where this is still a fountain of knowledge all around us, waiting to be discovered.

The Two Weeks After the First Two Weeks

These past two weeks have been just as exciting at the last.  The plethora of experiments and demonstrations we have done during class come from all divisions of synthetic biology.  From making "working" gel electrophoresis using only grocery store items and legos, to making bacterial "photographs", each project has given me a taste of real world applications of Course 20.

The video we watched on the plausible threat of recombinant DNA provided me with a unique scope on how far synthetic biology has come.  When at one point scientists were arguing about whether or not introducing this technology into BL2 labs would be safe, we now transform simple E. Coli in a regular classroom, with the only safety item of gloves.  Although we are only making bacteria purple or green, it is a true testament to how far science has leaped forward since a mere 30-40 years ago.

The class as a whole has remained fascinating from day one.  There is never a dull point, and even if there is, we get tea and cookies to help cope with those times.  Nevertheless, this class has been worth the time commitment thus far, and I'm sure it will continue to be a class I look forward to in the morning or after a long day of lectures.

3D printing with Synthetic Biology

In this blog post, I'm just going to toy around with an idea that's been bouncing around my head. This is more just to get it on paper, because it will probably never get built. (I'm still free this summer if anyone wants to take me on in a lab though...) Also, the biology only begins in the fourth paragraph.

I've been thinking about rocket engines a bunch recently, having looked at Rocket Team's liquid fuelled rocket (I'm not on Rocket Team, I just think it's cool). Rocket engines are really hard to build (it is rocket science!) for a few reasons: the materials are really exotic (I think they mentioned Zirconium Oxide?), the engine needs to be cooled so it doesn't melt (sophisticated rockets use unburnt fuel as coolant, but this requires tubing in the engine, which adds more complexity), and the surfaces need to be really smooth. Rocket Team uses a milling machine, which creates smooth surfaces, but requires that the engine be built in many parts so the cutter can actually reach what it needs to cut.

Personally, I think 3D printing is much better suited to the challenge. It could build the entire part in one piece, which would reduce weight and allow for built-in tubes for cooling. However, current 3D printers either (a) can't create a good surface finish, or (b) are very, very expensive. Can synthetic biology help?

Synthetic biology might actually be able to help with 3D printing. The size of a cell is definitely comparable, if not smaller, than the tolerances that can be achieved with a milling machine. Maybe we can do something like stereolithography with cells?

Here's the plan:

1. Build a cell that lives near the surface of some sort of opaque, water-based broth
1. When it absorbs light (which can only happen at the surface because of the opacity), it secretes Carnauba wax
1. Wax is insoluble in water, so the wax remains solid until the end of the print.
2. Then, grab an empty vat, put one of those 4K projectors on top (about $4000-$10000 right now)
3. Slowly fill the vat with more solution while the projector projects cross sections of the rocket engine onto the surface.

Why Carnauba wax? I chose wax because it is commonly used in manufacturing metals. It's common practice to build something with wax, bury it in casting sand, then burn off the wax and pour molten metal into the cavity. Usually paraffin wax is used, but that is a petroleum product, so we need to use either a plant wax or an animal wax (beeswax). I chose plant wax because beeswax probably has some complicated relationship with the honey. Carnuaba wax is produced by Copernicia Prunifera, and has a great surface finish, so that seems ideal.

So how might we design that cell?

1. First, what kind of chassis do we want to use?
1. I think algae are best suited, because they have already evolved to float and thrive on the surface of water.
2. Second, how do we detect light?
1. Let's not reinvent the wheel here. The easiest solution is usually the best, so we can just steal from (be inspired by) the Coliroid iGem team.
2. We'll use their Cph8, and their promoter.
3. Third, how do we secrete wax?
1. It turns out that one pathway to wax has only a single enzyme.
2. So, we can extract that enzyme from C. Prunifera, and stick that right after the promoter
3. We probably should also just constitutively express a bunch of related enzymes from C. Prunifera, because may be need membrane pores or other machinery. Who knows?

Would this work? Probably not. I'm guessing putting eukaryotic genes from C. Prunifera into algae (another eukaryote) probably has a lot of complications. But who knows?

Some other random thoughts:

• There should be some kind of surfactant in the solution, so that it spreads evenly over the existing layers
• Will the enzyme keep working when the light turns off? Maybe we should tag it for destruction after a short time.

Week 2

Having no real experience in Biological Engineering prior to taking 20.020, the first few weeks of this class have been an enlightening experience to say the least.  Although we have not completely explored the myriad of subject matters pertaining to BE, the past couple days have intrigued me in a few topics areas.

First, the simple alterations of living organisms, although as small as E. Coli, have shown me how powerful synthetic biology can be.  From changing the natural scent to changing the physical appearance of the organism, I have gotten a first impression of biological engineering to be essentially limitless.

I am also looking forward to working with the upperclassmen, and got a glimpse at this opportunity on Wednesday while working with the E. Coli transformations regarding color.  How intelligent they are, having already gone through the coursework we are about to partake in, combined with their extremely helpful nature makes the dynamic very useful to my learning.

As long as the rest of the weeks continue in the same fashion as the past two have, this will be a great semester.  And by the looks of the structure of the class, it will only get more interesting compelling as the weeks roll by.

First Two Weeks

After hearing many positive recommendations from upperclassmen, I remember excitedly registering for this course on registration day. I was thrilled to be finally taking biology related courses, a welcome change from the physics and math-filled first semester at MIT. I looked forward to the project-based work, which would be an interesting change from the endless problem sets, and the information about bioengineering, which would hopefully help me to decide whether or not course 20 was for me. Most of all, I was excited about the possibilities of what I could be doing with a team in just a few months.

Two weeks later, I feel like this course has started to do exactly what its title implies: introduce students to bioengineering. It has been really cool learning about some of the standardized processes in the field, such as using chassis, using transcription points to cut enzymes, and inserting promoters and inverters into DNA. One thing that struck me was that, apart from the existence of certain techniques, there is very little standardization to procedures in bioengineering. Perhaps this is due to the seemingly infinite number of applications that bacteria and other biomaterials can have. There are just so many different ways to manipulate the existing natural infrastructure for our purposes, and so many purposes we can think up for different biomaterials. And since the experiment really depends on the goal we are trying to achieve, there seems to be infinitely many different things we can do to many varied organisms. Basically, it feels like the possibilities are endless. 

I suppose it surprised me how simple it was to manipulate DNA. For the experiments done in lab, there was no fancy equipment needed, only Petri dishes, some chemicals, and some colonies of bacteria. It's still kind of mind-blowing to think that we are able to control microscopic DNA fragments so well just using macroscopic actions.

We haven't started the projects yet, and I have no idea which proposal is going to end up being the one, but without trying to have overly high expectations, I'm eager to see what we can accomplish.

2 Weeks In

      I am excited looking forward to this semester.  Although I'm still taking a few GIRs, I'm starting to take classes in the areas that interest me - and 20.020 is one of those classes.  I am excited about the format of the class as it is one of the first project/lab based classes I'm taking at the institute (the other being 6.01) and having the opportunity to work with upperclassmen in Course 20 should help me get a better idea of what the major itself looks like.  The last bit is particularly important to me because I'm currently debating between studying Course 20 (which is quite new to me) or Course 2 (which I spent most of my high school experimenting with).  As of now I think I'm leading towards the side of 20 and my participation in this class as well as on the school's iGEM team keeps pushing me farther in that direction.  I'll always love building things but when I see the range of possibilities of synthetic biology, I feel like it is a field that I could use to have a more broad and significant impact.  Sure, I can appreciate that biological engineering in general and synthetic bio in particular are not anywhere near the precise engineering disciplines that mechanical and electrical engineering are - so much remains to be understood about how biology works - but that just makes me more excited to get involved.  The thought of how young the field is could be disheartening at first but then I think of how much I could potentially bring to the table and how cool it would be to be one of the people who helps bring synthetic biology to the level of MechE as far as engineering disciplines go.

      I don't imagine that any of those lofty long-term goals will be achieved over this next semester in 20.020 but I'm really looking forward to seeing the ideas that people can think up in that time and hope that they will motivate us as we move forward in our education.

Learning Lives through engineering viewpoints

I fell in love with biology since my high school in Thailand. I participated in national and international Biology Olympiad, and learned lots of stuffs in biology - biochemistry, genetics, cell biology ... That makes me want to study biology for my bachelor's degree.

However, I think there's more than biology that interests me. I often search for biology news on the Internet, and I found lots of cool research (for example, genome synthesis, virus and bacteria engineering), and I began to think about the all biology stuffs I've learned. How about I can use that knowledge to make an impact? I then emerged myself into the world of biological engineering.

I chose this class because I want to learn more about what biological engineers work on. I learned how to use biological "switch" to produce something from iGEM project 2006, which is very cool. I mean, it just started (only 2 weeks) and I am so excited what I am going to learn more. I think this class is going to inspire me with a lot of cool things people doing something with living organisms.

We are about to do our project and I am so excited that I am about to put my idea or research I learned to actually make something. I am looking forward to work with my team and come up with something tangible, yet awesome! 

The Beauty of Complex Simplicity

I joined 20.020 mainly because I am interested in healthcare applications of bioengineering. I one day would like to design and build new healthcare technologies, and I believe 20.020 is the perfect introduction into the field. 

That said, I haven't taken a biology class since Junior year of high school. I don't know a lot about bioengineering, and most of what we have learned so far has been new to me. My internal thought process during class is usually along the lines of "whoah, you can actually do that!?" While the new material is certainly a lot to absorb, I couldn't be happier with this class. The prospect of being able to manipulate DNA-- the very language of life-- is so complex and yet so elegant at the same time. It floors me each time, and I am thrilled to be able to learn more about it. 

So far, all facets of the class have been enjoyable, but I especially love the labs. It's one thing to see a technology or method on a powerpoint, but it's a completely different experience to actually manipulate the biological systems yourself. The strawberry DNA extraction was an awesome example of this. There was something about having the DNA in front of me that made me realize how incredible the graceful simpleness of accessing the very substance that encodes life is.

I don't know much about bioengineering, but I am so excited to learn. The experience so far has been amazing. Learning about new discoveries and the systems that facilitate our existence is something I really enjoy, and I can't wait to dig more into the subject! 

 

Lab Coats and Pipettes

Introduction to Biological Engineering Design using Synthetic Biology. I had heard about a class called 20.020, as essentially an intro to course 20 and thought it might be nice. When I read the title of the class, however, I thought I was in for it. I had heard people talking about 10.10 in horrific reverence, and I thought 20.020 would be a similar deal. I was planning on a rough semester; the beginning of the course 20 life. And then we had tea and cookies.

            I signed up for 20.020 hoping to help make up my mind as to whether or not I wanted to be course 20. Up until IAP when I started a UROP in course 20, all I knew about course 20 was that you wore a lab coat and made stuff with biology. I had seen a few examples, like prosthetics and pharmacy applications, and even a biotechnology application to human blood, but not too much beyond that. After IAP, I thought course 20 was all about pipetting and making molecules and trying to get the smell of latex out of your hands after you take your gloves off. Since the beginning of 20.020 I’ve rapidly been exposed to quite a bit of synthetic biology that I’d seen before in a biology classroom, but hadn’t actually seen applied to anything. I was intrigued at how Biological Engineering was applied to material that was relatively well understood in the classroom in order to solve a real world problem. When we saw bacterial transformations from the IGEM team in class, the only problems I had ever had to solve with bacterial transformations were simple, irrelevant questions on an exam. As I’ve been narrowing down my list of potential majors it seems increasingly likely that I will major in course 20. I’m exited to have had early exposure to many of these bioengineering principles early on.

            I’m exhilarated at the idea that I will get to design a biological system to address a real world concern. It will be my first taste of what it means to be a biological engineer. I’m only afraid I might have to drop 20.020 due to scheduling concerns, which would be a shame. If I have the chance to stay, I’m really looking forward to the weeks to come.

Decisions, Decisions

Everyone keeps saying that us college freshmen change our minds a lot. They also then turn around and expect us to be able to articulate what we would we plan to do with the rest of our lives.  I have answered that question with a description of plans for studying biological engineering for the past two years.  One reason for this was that I had heard about synthetic biology at the end of my junior year of high school and thought that the ability to be able to change the DNA of bacteria in order to complete a task sounded like the coolest thing ever and something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. My second reason for saying that I wanted to be a biological engineer is that it gave me something to say besides "I am 17/18/19 years old and am still figuring things out, and I have no idea", even though that is an honest and pretty acceptable answer.

Now, as I approach the time when I have to declare what I am majoring in, really knowing what I want to major in seems a little more important.  I am taking this class to try and figure out if I really do love course 20, or if I am going to do just what many are implying that I will and change my mind.  

I think it is hard to judge right now.  I have all these big dreams of working on new medicines or energy to improve people's lives. I loved brainstorming ideas of possible projects today, but I also recognize that I know very little.  I also, between 20.020 and iGEM, am always coming extremely close to messing up experiments.  I can barely grasp how to insert a gene that changes the color of bacteria,  It sometimes feels like being in a foreign country and having all these things you want to tell people and all these ideas in your head, but only being able to say "hello" and "goodbye" and count to ten.  Yet I think I really do want to continue with 20. Every time I hear about projects or listen to ideas of what could be I think, "Yes! That! That is it! Let me help! Right now!" That is when I believe that how I can do something I love and really make a difference.

Enjoying 20.020!

My original motivation for signing up for 20.020 was to learn whether or not I am interested in declaring Course 20. While I haven’t made up my mind yet, 20.020 is definitely my favorite class this semester, and not just because of the tea and cookies. The labs are fun, and it’s really cool to see what people have been able to do with synthetic biology. I’m also really looking forward to working with the seniors and designing my own project.

So far, I like 20.020 because instead of showing us the problems, or the solutions, it focuses on the process. Let me explain: In math and physics, for example, we learn some really solid skills that help us solve foundational problems in those subjects. Even though I love math and physics, it’s sometimes hard to see the point of what we’re learning because the class focuses mainly on those specific solutions. On the other hand, the project-based classes I’ve taken seem to be more about problems that need solving: build a robot that can traverse this obstacle course, design a bridge that can hold a certain amount of weight, develop a 50-year global plan for clean energy (which I did in Terrascope). Many of these classes show us what real-world problems look like but don’t give any direction on how to go about fixing them. However, 20.020 so far seems to be about the techniques people use to solve bioengineering problems: how to program DNA to make it do what you want, which I think is super cool. It's amazing to see all the different directions you can go with these techniques.

I like 20.020 more than any of the other project-based classes I’ve taken so far, but I am doubting my capabilities a little bit. It seems like any idea I could come up with, somebody has probably already tried. What project can I take on that will be novel and challenging enough to hold my interest, but easy enough that I could design it? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

I like physics. So why am I taking 20.020?

I probably won't major in course 20. I'm really interested in making humanity multi-planetary (the same way some people are really interested in world peace: unlikely but exciting), which necessitates huge advances in space transport. In the meantime, I'm interested in making foundational advances in space and robotics. So I'll probably major either in 2, 8 or 16.

So why am I taking 20.020? Because I see biological engineering as a way to help build the increasingly complex devices needed to advance robotics and spaceflight. Cells are just self-replicating machines, no?

On the large scale, imagine trying to terraform Mars. Making the atmosphere breathable and soil arable would require millions of tons of machinery, which would be prohibitively expensive to launch. On the other hand, if cells were developed that could do the work, the required payload would only be a few grams, because the cells could self-replicate.

On the small scale, integrated circuits are reaching a limit. The transistors can't get much smaller, because the electrons would tunnel between traces. The dies can't get much bigger, because the production process requires making huge prints of every transistor and then using a lens to shrink that image to nanosize. If self-replicating transistors (i.e. cells) were used instead, then they could be used to make much more complex circuits, potentially in three dimensions. In addition, they would be cheaper, because a single cell could result in a full circuit after some maturation time.

Obviously, both of these things are a while away. Biological systems aren't well enough understood, and DNA isn't cheap enough to make. But when the time comes, I think Biological Engineering could easily grow faster than semiconductors did, and after 20.020 I'll be a little bit more prepared for that.

So that's why I'm excited about Biological Engineering.

One Word: Gross

The strawberry DNA looked like white mucus. The scented e. coli smelled like bananas masked in plague. The pGRN results looked like someone sneezed in an agar plate. My initial thought when I experience these things is "GROSS!" but after getting over my silliness, I realize how the procedures leading to these products are innovative and quite beautiful.

I was initially worried about taking 20.020 in addition to my 4 other classes. I did well 1st semester, but that was with 4 classes and over the safety net of P/NR. Now,  I'm out on the tightrope with a lot less to catch my grades if they fall, so naturally, I wouldn't be too excited about taking the 5-class plunge, but I think 20.020 is going to be entirely worth the extra time it'll require.

The course seems to be structured in such a way to ease students into all the rigors of course 20, starting off Week 1 labs with simple strawberry DNA extractions and moving through Week 2 with more complex procedures, like inserting plasmids into varying e. coli strains and observing the resulting phenotypic expression.

I enjoyed rattling off ideas about applications of biological engineering with my group today (and we came up with quite the list!), but it felt a little silly. I mean, I feel like these ideas should be based in knowledge of the practicality of the suggestions and of tools to bring those ideas to life, and we, as a class, are lacking in both of those respects.... But on the other hand, maybe it's the approaching of the worlds problems from a novice's uninformed perspective that is the greatest mechanism of innovation available. LOL, I don't know about any of that, but I'm excited to see where our Intro to 20 takes us next!