In Which I Extol the Virtues of Science, For Once

I know you’re all expecting a post that explains my class schedule for the semester.  And I promise, I will get to that eventually (where eventually means probably next week or so... depending on various circumstances).  But today I don’t feel like writing an explanatory post- I’m in the mood to extol the virtues of something again.  For the past several weeks/months I’ve been working on figuring out what I want to do with my life, which is always a fun process.  Specifically what I’ve been doing is trying to draft a Statement of Purpose for my grad school applications (still working on where exactly I’m applying... I have a lot of things I’m trying to figure out at the moment).

Statements of Purpose are a way for grad school application committees to get to know you without actually meeting you.  The statement is meant to succinctly describe who you are, and why you’re excited about what the field in which you’re planning to pursue a degree.  As a result, they require a not-insignificant amount of soul-searching and lots and lots of revisions.  I’m experiencing a bit of writers’ block on my actual statement at the moment, but a very smart friend of mine encouraged me to break it down to the small, simple pieces, and then build it back up again, adding complexity as I revise (she specifically told me to use 3-year-old language, which makes things surprisingly difficult).  Anyway, today’s blog post is going to be something of an attempt to identify exactly what it is about biology that captivates me- if some of it makes it into my eventual Statement of Purpose, so much the better.

In 3-year-old terms, I want to study biology because it will allow me to help get rid of diseases that hurt a lot of people.  In slightly more sophisticated terms, I want to pursue a doctoral degree in Biology because I want to be able to do research that will eventually contribute to finding cures for diseases such as cancer.  The driving force behind this desire is that I want to be able to help people, but I’m really more of the behind-the-scenes type than is generally recommended for doctors.  Plus, the monotone is really not ideal for good bedside manner. :P

I think the moment that inspired me to pursue biology was during an AP Bio lecture where we were studying genetics.  The idea that such miniscule molecules (DNA, in this case) could define whether you were able to curl your tongue, or if you had a hitchhiker’s thumb, or what color your eyes are, or whether you’re predisposed to certain types of cancer was incredible to me.  We considered the ethics of knowing so much about yourself, and of manipulating the tiny molecules that define us so that we could eradicate genetic diseases.  I think that’s the main idea that grabbed me and refused to let go.  DNA is so tiny that its form wasn’t understood until the early 1950s, simply because the technology wasn’t available yet to comprehend things that small.  At the same time though, based on back-of-the-envelope calculations, all of the DNA in your body is enough to stretch from the Earth to the Sun 100 times over, if lined up on end (source).  DNA alone is absolutely incredible, and to understand everything about it would take several lifetimes.  On the other hand though, that means that there’s never a reason to be bored, at least.

I came home from class today severely overwhelmed at the sheer magnitude of things that I don’t know anything about.  We spent an hour talking about how mouse embryos develop, and how they can be manipulated to do experiments on certain genes or systems.  In that hour, at least 20 words were mentioned that I had never heard before, and for Wednesday’s lecture I need to read two scientific papers that deal pretty heavily with the meanings of those 20 words. In lab, my grad student is working on a series of projects that will allow us to quantify a person’s DNA repair capacity just by looking at their blood samples.  I’m working on a connected project that’s looking to determine the pathway by which a specific DNA lesion is repaired.  And that’s, what, three people, out of the hundreds or thousands of scientists working at MIT?  And MIT is one out of hundreds or thousands of research universities in the world?  The number of problems that are currently being worked on is just incredible.  Which is what draws me to science in general, I think.  There’s a path by which the answer can be found, so it’s more defined than art or literature.  But there are a seemingly endless number of problems to be worked on, and even by solving one problem you’re just opening up more questions about another one.

Biology, in particular, is probably the most easily applicable subset of science- it’s fairly easy to see how finding the answer to a biology problem will benefit the greater community in addition to providing general knowledge.  What I love about biology isn’t that it’s applicable though, I don’t think.  I love biology because of the challenge.  It’s not a straightforward search for answers- there’s a substantial amount of troubleshooting and thinking that needs to be done even before you can start looking for answers.  Honestly, that’s the boring part.  If I could just do lab work without thinking about it, I’d be totally down for that.  But that wouldn’t be science- it’d be factory work.  And while I’m not a person who’s predicting that robots will one day take over the world, I can appreciate that what sets us apart from them at the moment is our ability to come up with new ideas and creatively solve problems.  So while sitting down and just thinking about the problem can be ridiculously boring, it’s also an integral part of the scientific process. 

Basically, what I’m trying to say is the biology is stupidly cool, and I’m glad I get to keep doing it, because there’s just a ridiculous amount of things that I don’t know yet.  But you know what the great thing about being a scientist is? It's completely okay that there's a ridiculous amount of things I don't know.  Because that's the entire point of science.