Difference between revisions of "Team:elan vital korea/members"

I’m Young Chan Kim. I love the Big Bang Theory. The drama, I mean. When I’m not watching it, I read books, mostly science and math books. It’s exciting, but it’s sad sometimes, to realize that they’ve got everything nailed down. What am I supposed to contribute to the body of knowledge when they know everything? Science should not be all about rote memorization and recitation, but about discovery and invention.

It’s my second time attending iGEM. Last year, I researched one of the worst nightmares of humanity, MRSA. It’s deadly bacteria as it acquired resistance to antibiotics. If antibiotics are the fruit of heroic efforts to save humanity from disease and death, then antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA are the Mother Nature’s reaction, the Nature Strikes Back. Bacteria, like all other living organisms, evolves. Humans evolve, too. But, bacteria, by virtue of being so small and living so little, evolves a lot faster than bigger competitors like humans. That’s why we have antibiotic-resistant bacteria. So, it’s very Promethean, like endless swing between victory and defeat, heroism and tragedy. (WHO seems to say a different story that we have them partly because no new antibacterial drug is invented after the discovery of Daptomycin in late 1980s. That is, because scientists got lazy, but it’s a different story.)

It means the next antibiotic-resistant bacteria you encounter may not be the one that you’re familiar with. It most likely have evolved since! To recognize them in all of their evolutionary diversity, we must go deeper. That’s what we did last year: find the DNA sequence that gives the bacteria the antibiotic-resistance. This year, we took one step further: let a bacteria tell us if antibiotic-resistant bacteria is found in their neighborhood, using their own communication method, quorum sensing. Isn’t it fascinating? That’s what I love about iGEM and synthetic biology. You can actually make that happen! You can make an E coli to report to us if they find any antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their neighborhood. You create a life that does what you want! It’s a brave new world!

In addition to being a zealous iGEMer, I am a senior at Stanford University Online High School. Sometimes, you can find me playing viola, ice hockey or drawing pictures, but what you find of me in concert halls, ice hockey fields or atelier won’t excite you as much than in labs, libraries or even classrooms. Not in a Sheldon or Leonard way like in the Big Bang Theory, mind you, but because I’m a man of curiosity, easily excited over small discoveries, delicious food and fun stories and happy just being with friends who understand each other.