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.