Jasmine Neal | 3 min read
It all started with a toilet bowl. Occasionally, random ideas will pop into my head and if I have my phone or pen and paper nearby, I strive to capture them. Most of the time I don’t think of them again, but this idea was different — it lingered. At times, it would randomly come up in conversation, revealing the fact that it remained at the forefront of my mind. Naturally, I started to entertain it.
Picture this: You’re holding a small glass bottle with a dropper in your hand and squeeze a bit into the toilet. After you’ve finished using the restroom, you may notice that the contents in the toilet undergo a color change driven by a chemical reaction intended to identify the human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) hormone (a protein). A color change can indicate pregnancy for women or the presence of a tumor for men. Flush the toilet, store the glass bottle in your bathroom cabinet and use it again when needed for a discrete and plastic-free pregnancy or tumor test. Simple. Deceivingly simple…
Diving deeply into the worlds of molecular biology and biochemistry revealed that this was no easy feat, yet I always felt up for the challenge. The more I learned, the more questions I had. Could we modify proteins so that they create an amyloid structure and contribute to fiber cohesion? Could we leverage the protein-protein interaction of SH3 domains and proline-rich regions to express short repetitive proteins using synthetic biology techniques that then “self-elongate” through binding? How can we catalog protein domains so they’re seen as flexible building blocks for enzymatic pathways or structural properties? Fast forward and my evenings and weekends became filled with the thrill of proteins as I started to lead Engineered Matter Labs (EML) at Genspace, NYC’s community biology lab, alongside Annick Saralegui.
Open to anyone and everyone, the intention of EML is to democratize the understanding of and interaction with molecular biology while developing functional materials for a sustainable world. At the moment we’re focused on expressing custom spider silk-inspired proteins through yeast (Pichia pastoris) as a host organism, but we imagine the team and projects we pursue will continue to evolve (pun intended). (Perhaps there’s a world where we transition to Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a host organism!) With exposure to machine learning, biochemistry, synthetic biology lab techniques and business analysis methods, our only hope is that members of the lab begin to deeply understand the challenges behind protein expression and translating research to potential business applications.
When I decided to step away from TUNE at the end of 2021, I felt deeply lost. Yet there’s been an undeniable pull to synthetic biology and biochemistry, driven by curiosity, that still remains. And to my surprise, I’ve found out that I enjoy science communication! Despite the imposter syndrome, this feels like where I need to be. So, all I can do is pursue this curiosity in full force while remaining open to wherever it may go and I hope that, in some capacity, you’ll join me.
I wholeheartedly believe that this is an exciting time for biotechnology and open science and I think Alexander Titus is right in the idea that a PhD is not required. Listen to Eric Schmidt compare this moment to the beginning of the software revolution in the 1980s or to Seemay Chou and Prachee Avasthi chat about how Arcadia Science will shift how science is funded, conducted and translated. This is just the beginning.