Why I'm writing a synthetic biology blog

Back when I was first starting on my adventures in software, there was so much to learn. Even with the copious resources available, I still found it difficult to wrap my head around concepts that people were writing about. I felt like if someone could frame the problem for me correctly - and sometimes someone would - then I would have been able to learn things much faster. This will be a blog about my adventures into biology. It is meant to be a practical guide to building and editing the substrate of which we are an outgrowth.

This blog will also serve as my own reference for the things that I learn along the way. I’d like to get to a point where I am able to run through the full design, build, test, learn phase repeatedly with my own equipment. My introduction to biology was an excellent lecture series from The Great Courses called Biology: The Science of Life. I didn’t follow everything that was talked about, but it definitely sparked my interest. Thanks to all the people responsible for making that happen, especially to Stephen Nowicki.

I’ve recently become somewhat obsessed with synthetic biology in a way that I haven’t been since I first started learning to program computers. The idea of programming life; that we can shortcut natural processes is very compelling. Synthetic biology allows us to make spider silk from yeast, gasoline from algae, and insulin from bacteria.

If you find any errors in my posts, please contact me to help me out.

I hope that someone in the future finds this useful.