Mae govannen! I'm Vivian Zhong, a senior in course 20 (Biological Engineering), and a lover of all things plants and fantasy. I'm a UROP in the Weng Lab at the Whitehead Institute, where I'm working to elucidate the biosynthetic pathway of resiniferatoxin, a capsaicin (the "spice molecule") analogue. My favorite trees include ginkgo and quaking aspen, and I can talk your ears off about how fascinating genetically-engineered crops are.
Herein lies a record for posterity of my work for How to Grow (Almost) Anything, a class in which we explore a spectrum of ways to apply the "maker" approach to biology.
In which I feel bad about how wasteful lab research is
Why buy DNA ladders when you can make your own?
Hacking a fly swatter for transformation by electroporation
Can you paint with all the colors of the amilCP fluorescent protein?
50 shades of carotenoids
In silico folding
A small wiggle for microbe, a giant effect for microbiome
Life, but not alive...cellular zombies?
Embiggening brains
Finally checking CRISPR off my to-do list
Hunting for bee yeast