My Journey Through Synthetic Biology

Hey everyone! Welcome back to my blog. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on complex applications of Synthetic Biology. So, today I wanted to take a step back, zoom out, and focus on something fundamental.  The question I’m focusing on today is pretty simple: How does a cell decide what genes to turn on? Every tissue, every organ, and every biological response ultimately comes down to which genes are active and which ones aren’t. That’s where gene regulation and transcriptional control come in. If DNA Is the Same, Why Are Cells Different? Did you know that almost every cell in your body contains the exact same DNA? Your neurons, muscle cells, skin cells, and immune cells all carry the same genetic code. So why don’t they all look and behave the same? The answer isn’t in the DNA sequence itself. It’s in which parts of the DNA are being read. Gene regulation is the process that determines which genes are turned “on” or “off” in a cell at a given time. Transcri...

Hey everyone! First and foremost, I wanted to apologize for missing last week’s blog. Flu B has been making its way around the community, and unfortunately, it decided to pay me a visit. But I’m finally feeling better and ready to get back into it. As I started looking for this week’s topic, I wanted something that naturally built off where I left off. After going down what felt like thousands of Google searches, I stumbled onto an interdisciplinary field within synthetic biology that honestly might be one of the coolest connections I’ve seen so far: It’s where biology crosses into physics. When I usually talk about cells, it’s typically about how they respond to signals like hormones, proteins, and DNA instructions. However, today, that’s only a small part of the story. Today and in nature, cells don’t just respond to chemicals. They respond to force. That idea is the foundation of something called mechanobiology. What Is Mechanobiology? Mechanobiology is the study of how cells sense ...