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.