Champagne, pistols, and my new UROP

Champagne, pistols, and my new UROP There are many legendary stories of perseverance in history.  Custers Last Stand.  The Battle of the Alamo.  That one time those buff Spartan dudes kicked lots of people into wells. And then theres this guy: As you may know, legend says there is always a light on in the Green Building.  Thats because those nocturnal diurnal  (whats the term for does not sleep? not-urnal?) creatures known as grad students never stop working.  And if there ever comes a time when there are no lights on in the Green Building then you know the worlds about to end. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that means that one poor soul in the Green Building, tooling on in the face of a massive power outage, keeping that one light on, is the only person keeping this world in balance.  Hes kind of like the Avatar, except that being an MIT person he probably has some lame power like wifi-bending or something. (yes, we had a Korra-watching marathon over Thanksgiving and it was totally awesome.  Makorra all the way, btw.) Anyways! As you may or may not have noticed, Ive been absent from these blogs for the past few weeks, and thats because Ive been super busy.  One might even call this past week a Heck Week, if one were following the advice of one wholesome blogger alum.  Heres a quick rundown of what Ive been up to: UROP in Langer Lab   Ive been dying to tell you guys about this, but I only recently got all the applications done and didnt want to blog my chickens before they hatched. I GOT MY DREAM UROP! Its in Langer Lab, of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.  My research group is working on a siRNA-based treatment of liver cancer and it has huge, huge potential.  In a nutshell: siRNA (short interfering RNA) is part of a natural gene-regulating mechanism called RNA interference, where siRNA is used to stop specific genes from being translated.  siRNA does this by binding to and destroying mRNA molecules before they can be translated into proteins. What if you could find siRNA that shut off the genes that cause cancer cells to go haywire?  Thats the exact idea behind this siRNA-based therapy.  Langer Lab has developed siRNA that can shut off 10 genes at once in the livers of mice, and theyve also developed nanoparticles to deliver the siRNA (although this is very much still an ongoing field of research). It’s really, really exciting. My specific role in the project is to work with my postdoc to find novel targets in liver cancer cells for the siRNA to attack.  The UROP involves all sorts of stuff I’m interested in wet lab, molecular biology, cell cultures, and computational biology (!). After taking Intro to Python this IAP, hopefully I’ll be able to apply it in some lab work. This is going to be awesome. Right now, though, Im still in training all Langer Lab training is quite comprehensive, and mine has to be even more so because Ill be working with lab rats and that involves extra animal protocols. Also, for those of you who dont know about Langer Lab its the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world, with around $10 million (!) in annual grants.  Professor Bob Langer is legendary hes the most cited engineer in history, winner of the Draper Prize (engineerings equivalent of the Nobel), and all-around nice guy (hes known for replying to emails under two minutes, whether its the President of the United States ora lowly UROP student).  The New York Times did a great profile of him a few days ago, and Langer Lab used some of its massive budget to throw a celebratory champagne party.  Which I was not invited to.  Sad face. Pistol At MIT, we do a lot of things differently.  PE is one of them.  You can forget running laps and all that lame stuff you did in high school (unless you like that stuff, in which case we have a track and field team).  MITs got a lot of awesome PE classes, from badminton to archery to sailing to fencing. Im taking pistol right now, and this is the most fun Ive had in PE ever.  Mike Conti, the instructor (hes the guy on the left, with the gray hearing protection), is superb hes former military and a former Massachusetts SWAT trainer.  Were shooting a .22 LR round, with the Ruger MkIII.  Our Top Gun competition is coming up this Tuesday, actually and I am in it to win it. Psets.  Lots of psets. Fun and games and pistols and siRNA aside yes, I still have to pset.  Only three weeks left before winter break, though! Speaking of which IAP I cannot wait for IAP.  For those who dont know, Independent Activities Period is a month-long vacation in January that MIT gives us, separate from winter break.  Some people choose to stay home, but most people take advantage of the awesome fun classes and activities going on.  For example, Ill be taking blacksmithing (just one step closer to my ultimate goal of making an Iron Man suit!), and also will be taking MITs Intro to Python class.  Theres also a lot of non-academic stuff going on chocolate truffle-making classes, wine tasting, coding competitions, robotics competitions, etc. As one upperclassmen described it to me IAP is basically all the awesomeness and passion of MIT, crammed into one month, without psets. For now, though adieu! [EDIT: HALLELUJAH THE LIGHTS JUST WENT BACK ON]