Phage Rage

Well, here we are, folks. The finish line. Leslie’s voice egging us on – “you’re almost done! hang in there!”

It truly is difficult to believe that we are almost done with 20.109. 3 mods ago, I could not imagine this moment – especially the chance to take home a phage-powered battery. Nope, absolutely unheard of. Would not have believed you if you told me this is how the class would end.

(Yes, these are my hands.) My father – an electrical engineer – would be proud of my efforts. And then he’d probably tell me that “if you like making batteries so much, you should change majors.” No thanks, dad, Course 20 will do.

I have to say that Mod 3 was most gratifying of all of the modules. Not that creating a bazillion CometChips or modifying E. coli metabolism wasn’t… It’s just that I feel like in this last module, we got to participate in the entire design process, going from point A to Z – from being introduced to the Prof. Belcher’s rationale in creating these batteries to constructing the batteries step by step (with Jifa’s help, of course!). To me, the last few weeks have felt like the epitome of Course 20. What kind of imagination, intellect, perseverance, and creativity does it take to come up with such an idea as a phage-powered battery? I suppose we got a glimpse of this in coming up with research proposal ideas…

The only ever-so-slightly disappointing bit about this module was that we didn’t see the expected nanowire structures when executing TEM. There. Was. So. Much. Gold. To the point where any FePO4 was either nonexistent or completely hidden by a layer of AuNP. I suppose this is the nature of science, though – not everything goes as expected.

I’d like to end this blog post by especially thanking Prof. Belcher – she is an absolute inspiration, and to me, embodies the spirit of Course 20 in her daring to think creatively about biological/electrochemical issues, and challenging the scientific status quo. Also, a huge thanks as always to Leslie, Emily, Maxine, and Noreen!

-Nicole