|
if you have access to this week's nature, you can find out what i've been doing (and will be doing) in grad school! there's a special focus on 'synthetic biology', which is pretty much the field i work in.
one especially cool article is from the lab i did a rotation in last spring. the first author is the grad student who mentored me. although i had no part in the project described in the paper (photographic system using films of genetically engineered bacteria), it's still pretty exciting to see them published in a major journal. and i guess other people think it's cool too - because they got written up by associated press and are now featured on yahoo news. it's funny to see my grad student mentor and my previous PI being photographed like cutting-edge scientists with such serious looks on their faces in this crazy, hi-tech-looking room. i mean, they are cutting-edge scientists but i also know they are usually not so serious-looking.
another article in this week's issue talks about the annual iGEM competition held at MIT, which is a relatively new synthetic biology competition. the structure is like those engineering competitions where teams build robots that do specific tasks. in this case, teams are building biological systems that do various things like sensing temperature, swimming towards things, counting, etc. some of the kids in the class i'm TAing participated in this competition and one of them is even quoted in the article!!
*surge of pride*
|