Amy's Summer Reflection
Nihowdy I'm Amy, a 15 y/o synbio researcher from Toronto 🇨🇦. Welcome to my monthly newsletter where I update you on personal projects, insights & resources you may find valuable. -- "I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think" - Socrates There are millions of amazing tweets, wisdom-bestowing books, advice from successful people, but you won't be able to gain a conceptual, long-lasting level of understanding without actually experiencing something yourself. The key to personal growth and understanding how the world works -- have interesting life experiences, especially those in which the outcome is uncertain. We as a culture consume so much yet create so little. My personal intention for the next season is to strive for more unique life experiences and pursue ideas that make me initially uncomfortable. I encourage you to too :)
But first, speaking of interesting experiences, here's a vignette of my summer☀️:
Interviewing Millie Liu, a deep tech VC -- Article Recap | Listen to the Interview
Decreasing clinical trial failures with BenchSci -- Recommendation Deck
Lessons Learned:
As a PM, if you want something done, have each team member be responsible for a specific task for that ownership mentality
Choose the single more relevant problem ASAP. We tried to solve 2/3 problems, failing to narrow down on the keywords that would unlock more valuable information
Helping Renesas choose their next acquisition -- Recommendation Deck
Lessons Learned:
The best way to discover unobvious insights is to talk to people and gain their perspectives. Shout out to Edward Wu for opening our eyes to a complex yet integral part of the semiconductor landscape :)
Cold Outreach Hack: use rocketreach to find the email of 1 executive from a company. Other executives will likely have the same email structure (ex. firstName.lastName@company.com). Use gmass to send multiple emails at once
Interviewing the CEO & writing an article for multus.media, a company creating synthetic FBS at 1% the price and 2x the lifespan
Building HOSA tinder (find your perfect HOSA event) with Laura Gao
Pro tip: using react and tailwind to build your websites is :chefs-kiss: Check out Laura's blog posts if you don't know where to start
Building nom button (for when you're hanging out with friends and can't decide where to eat/drink)
Editing TKS_International's iGEM promo video -- Check us out!
Explaining bioelectricity in 1min for the #VeritasiumContest
Bioelectricity-ing & Xenobot-ing Our cells speak a mysterious language -- the bioelectric code. By understanding and communicating this language, scientists have been able to perfectly regenerate organs, cure cancer, birth defects, and grow functional eyes in guts & butts.
After watching this exquisite Ted Talk, I knew that this was exactly what I wanted to spend the next few months of my life working on.
Fast forward to today, I've gotten to write a comprehensive bioelectricity review (with comics!), presented the topic to the MSEF science fair, learned how to code evolutionary algorithms with this course, and am currently evolving a xenobot to clear plaque from arteries. Colab Notebook.
Biggest thank you to my mentor Caitlin Grasso for your incredible support & guidance <3 and to Josh Bongard for helping get started along this path and inviting me to present my story at your lab meeting with Michael Levin, Douglas Blackiston & Sam Kriegman (xenobot pioneers!) You reading this, I encourage you to also learn about bioelectricity because it will be the future of healthcare!
Bioelectricty review MSEF Science Fair Presentation Learn more about my journey
A point for pondering
Do you want to impact people or change the way people impact people? Previously, I thought that all science should be applied -- used to solve a problem, not simply to advance humanity's knowledge. However, during a conversation with Michael Levin, he explained that there are 2 basic roads to make an impact.
Solve a pressing need right now and directly impact people (ex. doctors)
Instead of spending time helping people here right now, come up with something new to improve the state of art, rebuild civilization, produce something that didn't exist before and will exist forever (ex. carmakers back when everyone rode horses). Once you've cured a patient, tomorrow there's a new patient, you never get to the end of it. The thing about science is that generally, once you discover something, it stays discovered.
There's no wrong road. It all depends on your values and what brings you long term satisfaction.
I'm still questioning my values and I encourage you to do some soul-searching as well.
When productivity seems impossible
There was a point where I was unproductive & demotivated for days, getting distracted constantly, not able to get anything done. I proceeded to google my problems in hope of a magical solution... and I actually found one. The 20 minute rule -- tell yourself to work on something without getting distracted for just 20min (classical/lofi background music also helps), you will get over the discomfort hump and simply ~slide~ into a flow state effortlessly. Nir Eyal also talks about this in his TKP podcast. The urge to get distracted comes in waves 🌊. Once you get over this activation energy, then it's easy to keep powering away because action --> motivation due to inertia. Newton's first law postulates that an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by a net external force. You are an object. And inertia acts on you in more ways than you'd think. Here are some of those ways:
The more you write, the more you'll write.
Say something in a zoom meeting, it'll be easier to further converse.
Say nothing, you'll probably keep saying nothing.If you feel unmotivated, start working and you'll likely want to continue.
may enjoy...
📚 Books:
Decoding the World - put this at the top of your reading list. This book will challenge your preconceived notions of the world and show you how biotech will build the future.
It's by Arvind Gupta & Po Bronson (++ respect) from IndieBio (top tier biotech accelerator helping founders across the unique biotech valley of death, accelerated companies such as Upside Foods, NotCo, Finless Foods, Synthex, Catalog, huue, etc.)
Atomic Habits - unique & actionable perspectives regarding habits
The Unspoken Rules - how to be a professional at your first job
The 5AM Club - own your morning; elevate your life ;)
When Breath Becomes Air - on neuroscience and the fleetingness of life
💻 Blog Posts:
Do the Real Thing -- probably why you feel like you can't get anything done
Running low on creativity? Take a walk!
David Perell has amazing content on writing Website | Newsletter | Youtube
Blog post on serendipity
🧰 Tools:
thespiest - really cool person who's built a lot of really cool tools
SigmaOS - browser to never have 100 tabs open somehow ever again
Want to never forget what you learn + indirectly teach others as well? Build in public, publish what you learn -- use Postulate
🌚 Start the day off refreshed & end the day peacefully with morning & night routines!
🎨 AMAZING initiative combining art + science: Krebs Institute
🐥 Music to make your day a bit more smiley: nom tunes
Upcoming adventures 🚀 My friend Sriya and I are finding ways to hustle funding for some of the world's best in person conferences -- The SynBioBeta Conference and Websummit. If anyone has any connections in sf/ the biotech space or Portugal/ the tech space that may be interested in sponsoring, please let me know! + Making our iGEM project real+ Becoming a Creative Destruction Lab Apprentice+ Joining On Deck Catalyst+ Activating @The Knowledge Society 😎
^^ Meeting TKS directors and alumni in person!
Before you leave! I'm looking to dive into a completely new field in the coming month or two. Reply to this email with something in the world that you're genuinely so excited by :D
Connect with me on: Twitter