Amy's April Update
Aloha! I'm Amy a 15 y/o synbio researcher from Toronto, Canada 🇨🇦. April was a crazy learning-filled month. Read on for what I was up to:
Moonshotting Picture above: moonshotting with some animal friends :)--Even though nowadays Elon Musk sends a rocket to space every 2 months, the first space mission was seemingly impossible. Inspired by the first shot to the moon, Sofi, Anna, Meera, and I were challenged by TKS to come up with our own moonshot idea and turn it into a company. Our 🌚: A nanobot circulating your bloodstream constantly monitoring and communicating abnormal biomarkers to diagnose diseases before symptoms show up (before it's too late). Lessons learned:
You can learn anything.
At the beginning of the challenge, I had no idea how nanotechnology worked or what in the world electrochemical transducers were. But by asking myself questions, using first-principles thinking, reading research papers, and emailing professors, I designed the final model for our nanobot.
The importance of high standards and branding.
I'd like to shout out Atherma for their high standards everything and Apollo Therapeutics for their 🤩 branding.
How to train high standards - expose yourself to what good looks like (Dribble and Behance are great places to start), ask others how they do it, put in the work, and get feedback.
Branding = consistency and repetition.
While it's not the biggest monkey, striving for professionalism does make a difference.
De-cluttering your workspace and mind.
When there's a lot to do in a short amount of time, it can feel like there's a party of thoughts in your head. But we can only physically do one thing at a time.
What helps: write down everything you're thinking about and pick one thing to work on right now. Become indistractable.
Click on the buttons below:
Baby frog cells and the bioelectric language A few weeks ago, I came across a Ted Talk that made me genuinely so excited. When we code, we import libraries and call predefined functions instead of coding everything from scratch. Our bodies also have predefined functions! We already know how to grow an eye or grow healthy cells because we've done it before. That information is stored in bioelectric interactions in cell membranes. Instead of coding everything from scratch -- gene editing, we can just change ion levels and regrow body parts, reverse aging, or cure cancer. 🤯 One way to study this language and make our future more exciting along the way is with xenobots. The world's first organism born from a computer, made with frog embryo cells, and capable of moving and making decisions on its own! I'm currently evolving my own xenobot from my computer. Check out my progress below: Xenobot simulation progress
🧠🌱 This month, I got the opportunity to listen to so many amazing people from all over the world. Here is one thing each of them talked about that stuck with me.
Hannah Le Figure out where you want to be in 5-10 years and learn skills, gain experience, and build your network to compound towards that.
Navid Nathoo (As a student) don't start a company unless you're forced to. Learn more here --> twitter thread
Gorick Ng Notice how your body is reacting to see how you actually feel towards something. Learn more here --> website | tiktok
Ameer Shakeel Don't listen to everyone but find those few people who have an intimate understanding of what you're trying to do.
Damian Matheson When doing cold outreach, ask to make content with the meeting (ex. ask them if they want to be on your podcast).
Richard Zhang Early stage VCs make 80% of their decision based on the team and 20% based on the marekt opportunity.
Aly Orady Once you set the bar high, it becomes a part of the team culture. It frees people to activate initiatives without asking for permission every time.
Anjali Bhatia The top two things that US universities care about are vitality (passion) and leadership (impact)
Jasmine Mukherjee Your personal brand is what you say and how you make ppl feel around you. Pick 2-3 things you want to be known for and show that off in every opportunity you have.
Back to Basics The quality of your rest determines the quality of your sprint. And life is a marathon. Health is the universal #1 priority. To get the healthy good vibes going, Klara, Sarah, and I made some kale pesto pasta. You! Remember to sleep well, eat well, hydrate (or diedrate), exercise, be kind and do something fun!
iGEM Project! So you may have heard of the gut microbiome, but did you know that plants have microbiomes as well? After successfully registering (woohoo!) my iGEM team and I decided to study the phytomicrobiome to increase crop yields and manufacture medicine. Learn more here. If you're interested in joining the team, take a look at our notion hub below and reply to this email! iGEM notion hub
Happy Mother's Day! Go do something kind for your mother today :) Also, check out the video my sister and I made for ours 👇 Mother's Day Rap 😎
More Recs Meditation -- my friend Madhav held a meditation session where we went over kinds of meditation different from the usual breathe in... breathe out ~ It was super peaceful and refreshing. Learn about the kinds of meditation we practiced and other 🤯 knowledge bits on the waking up app. Request a free account here. Most mind-blowingly educational yet funny blog EVER --> waitbutwhy.com, it will make you very happy reading it. I recommend starting with this one. Clean 🧼 no-code notion-esque website builder --> typedream.com Most people learn how the world works through experimentation and failure. Ray Dalio uses principles. His book is straight 🔥.
Update: my sunflower bloomed!
Have a merry May!
Connect with me on twitter.