Team:UC Berkeley/Team/Jin Huh



MY NAME/NICKNAME

Jin Huh/JINtamycin, Jinism, Jinbot

MY STATS

I am the Wet Team's Teaching Assistant. This fall, I will be a second-year grad student in the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Bioengineering program. I am completing my graduate work in Chris Anderson's lab. I graduated from UC Berkeley in the fall of 2006 with a degree in Chemical Biology.

WHAT LED ME TO SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

I feel that synthetic biology is an emerging field that has several promising applications in fields such as biofuels and therapeutics. I am very interested in the concept of using existing parts to create systems with new, useful functions.

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY: IN MY WORDS

Synthetic biology involves manipulations of DNA sequences, termed 'parts.' By nature, it is very conceptual because you need to understand the manipulations that you are making on a molecular level even though you can never directly see them. As such, it is kind of like a puzzle where you get results from assays and you need to infer what is actually happening based on what you can test. As the TA, much of my job involves helping the students understand what they are doing, how they can check that it is working, and what their results mean. I am sure that my experience in explaining concepts and helping students will be valuable in future roles as a graduate student instructor and professor.

MY POSSIBLE FUTURE WITH SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

I want to finish my graduate work in the field of synthetic biology. Specifically, I want to continue working on the tumor killing bacteria project in the Anderson lab. My work involves ensuring that the bacteria lyse and deliver their contents to the mammalian cells, which they invade. After completing my graduate studies, I hope to do postdoctoral research in synthetic biology and eventually become a professor.

MY GOALS WITH IGEM

I wanted to assist in leading the project and preparing the students on the team for independent scientific research in the future. I hope to help them understand and appreciate the different things that they can do in the emerging field of synthetic biology. Additionally, the lysis portion of this project is closely tied to my research on tumor killing bacteria in the Anderson lab. I hope that the parts generated by the iGEM team and my background knowledge on the subject can benefit both efforts.

MY FAVORITE DNA SEQUENCE

TAA because I am the TA for iGEM and it's my job to help students get to the finish line (TAA is one of the STOP codons generally found at the end of genes)

MY DUMBEST LAB MISTAKE/COMPUTATIONAL ERROR

I set an ethanol bottle on fire once.

MY FAVORITE CHILDHOOD CARTOON

Power Rangers

MY FAVORITE FOOD

Steve's #31 from the Asian ghetto

A BOARDWORTHY QUOTE

"I would just start over." (every time Aron makes a mistake)