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Gearing up for grad school

As I walked out of the classroom after the Mod3 research proposal presentation I felt a massive sense of relief and pride. The last major assignment of 20.109 was over – I had done it! The road had been far from smooth – the mod2 report had been a towering mountain that I still can’t believe I was able to scale. The mod3 presentation had been an intimidating concept – it was definitely overwhelming at first to have to narrow down literally all of biology and select a single topic of interest. However, once my group and I had an idea we were able to have a great time discussing and fleshing out the concept. Do I think it was the greatest idea for a research project ever? Probably not, but I think it was much better than I could have come up with before starting 109. Although it was hard to find enough time to dedicate to the proposal and to sleep with a busy final week for all my classes, I’m proud of myself and my team for the work that we put in and the resulting p
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Great way to end the semester

I wasn’t quite sure how much to trust the teaching staff when they said our class was going to get a lot better after the research article, but it actually did. This final module was a lot of fun. As an undergrad, most of my experience with science comes from going to classes in large lecture halls or performing the same experiment over and over again for my UROP supervisor. Coming up with a novel bioengineering idea from scratch was very different from most class assignments and helped remind me why I chose this major in the first place (definitely a necessary reminder while struggling through 20.320 and questioning my life choices). The research proposal was still a lot of work, but the work involved reading research articles about a topic I was interested in and brainstorming with my lab partner. 20.109 has been a really wonderful class (probably my favorite technical class I’ve taken at MIT). The instructors and TAs were amazing, and I think that the things I lear
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Biological Engineering--What isn't it??

Many people are confused as to what biological engineers do, which is fair because we encompass a broad range of applications. When people ask me what exactly BE is, I typically respond that ultimately it is taking the various engineering disciplines and applying them to biological systems. It is having the ability to observe the natural mechanisms found in biology and and then modify or reproduce desired aspects for a new goal.  I feel that the different modules show the kind of diversity present in BE and the creative applications that are possible. I enjoyed Mod3 the most due to the unique project we were doing. I find it amazing the endless possibilities that lie within the mysteries of biology and its manipulation.  The research proposals also speak to this expansive area of creativity. Anything imaginable can essential be grounded in some hypothesis that will let you explore that space. And even if the hypothesis ends up rejected, you still gain valuable information about wh
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Crispy Tau EP- Meerkat Gang

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This module was definitely not what I had initially expected, it went by so much quicker than the other two. I really enjoyed the content of the module, even though a lot of lab time was spent waiting (and not working on the research proposal like we were supposed to). Although it felt rushed and frantic, I quite liked having to do the research proposal. I was really excited to do some independent research on AD, even though we changed our approach what felt like a million times. I was able to learn a lot about something that I have been researching over the past two years and I also finally felt like I was contributing a large part to my group. Going into the research proposal presentation, I felt a lot more confident and comfortable than my journal club presentation. I'm really glad to have been a part of such a good lab team, it definitely played a huge part in my enjoyment of 109, because sometimes screwing around is better for you than being productive. This blog post is a lit
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Mod 3 >> Mod 2

Mod 3 was by far the best module in 20.109. We were able to make batteries using viruses and researched a novel proposal idea. It was also much easier to present with your lab partners instead of alone like in the journal club presentation. These last few days made me feel the most like a bioengineer and I'm looking forward to future lab work in the upcoming semesters.
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Novel blog post title

Module 3 was really interesting for me, because it covered an area of biological engineering that I’m not very familiar with. While I was at least somewhat familiar with the molecular biology and lab techniques covered in Modules 1 and 2, the material we covered in Module 3 was pretty new to me, so I really appreciated the chance to become familiar with another important area of biological engineering. I also felt like Module 3 lent itself really well to cool-sounding stories to impress my parents/friends with. As cool as using CRISPR sounds, saying “I made a battery out of a virus today” was definitely a hit with the parentals.  In addition to making the battery, I thought the research proposal was a really interesting process. As difficult as it was, it was really rewarding in the end when we finally became somewhat well-versed in our topic and eventually came up with a decent idea, and were (hopefully) able to communicate our idea to our peers. It was also interesting to see ho
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Coming up with a novel idea is difficult but also really exciting.

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After Mod 2, I was very excited for Mod 3. Woah virus battery that can light LED! Woah propose a novel research idea of your own! My teammate and I read some papers, but still quite procrastinate on choosing the idea for the project. Until the day before the elevator pitch, we decided that well, we couldn't procrastinate anymore, so we sat down and tried to think of a really novel idea. And we spent several hours in a seemingly infinite loop. First, we were so excited when we thought of an idea that seemed so original. Second, we used Google Scholar to confirm that it was a novel idea, only to discover that someone already did it like 5 years ago. Third, we repeated step 1. People seemed to already proposed everything possible with CRISPR, and every disease seemed to have a proposed cure. We repeated this loop lots of time. And then an idea came to my mind. CRISPR can up-regulate and down-regulate a gene seperately, but can it up-regulate and down-regulate a gene alternatively
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Time (PH)lies (A)lways - (GE)

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Wow, I can't believe it’s already almost the end of the semester! It’s literally so crazy. Even though so much has happened, both within 109 and my life, I feel like I just sat down for the first day of classes two days ago. While I know time flies, it still baffles me every time it keeps on doing it. Anyways, enough of my reflections. So what does “Biological Engineering” mean to me? It means engineering biology ideally to solve problems somewhere down the line. I say somewhere down the line because sometimes research does not have immediate applications, but I believe somewhere down the line, it will help someone, the society, the environment, something .   But what does it mean exactly to engineer biology? Well, throughout this class, we’ve seen a variety of ways to do so—through use of the CometChip for damaging DNA, CRISPR to edit DNA, and phage to make a battery. In my UROP, I engineer biology through trying to grow human-cells in 3D cultures for tissue e
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