{"id":11491,"date":"2019-05-31T11:36:20","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T15:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/?p=11491"},"modified":"2020-10-28T23:13:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T03:13:23","slug":"in-search-of-natures-winning-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/in-search-of-natures-winning-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"In search of nature\u2019s winning recipe"},"content":{"rendered":"
Fifth-year graduate student Darren Parker is as much a baker as he is a biologist \u2014 at least metaphorically speaking. He\u2019s\u00a0on a mission<\/a>\u00a0to understand the ratio of ingredients required to concoct nature\u2019s winning recipe for the optimal cell. Researchers have a solid understanding of which components are essential for cellular function, but they have yet to determine whether it\u2019s critical for cells to generate exactly the right amount of protein.<\/p>\n \u201cIn that way, my graduate work is actually pretty simple,\u201d Parker says. \u201cI just want to know if changing the amounts of a specific ingredient has an effect on the overall product.\u201d<\/p>\n The oldest of four brothers, Parker grew up in a suburb just outside of Chicago. When he enrolled in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for his undergraduate studies in 2009, he was considering a major in environmental science. \u201cMy high school biology classes were mostly rote memorization,\u201d he explains, \u201cso the molecular aspects just didn\u2019t resonate with me. I was more interested in studying life on a larger scale.\u201d<\/p>\n After his first year, he entered the Integrated Biology program, which essentially \u201cencompassed all biology that wasn\u2019t molecular biology.\u201d He was still required to take an introductory molecular biology course, though, as part of the major. But this time around, something clicked.<\/p>\n He remembers performing his first genetic knockdown experiment, decreasing the level of dopamine receptors in roundworms and witnessing the behavioral ramifications in real time. \u201cI finally had a handle on the molecular concepts enough to really get what was going on,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He attributed his newfound appreciation for the basic mechanisms underlying life to his fortified chemistry skills. At the beginning of his third year, he officially declared a biochemistry major, and joined a lab in the Department of Chemistry studying nucleic acid enzymes.<\/p>\n Parker\u2019s job was to sift through trillions of short DNA strands, selecting only those that could act like enzymes and cut RNA. He would then home in on the nucleotide sequences within those strands that were best suited to carry out the reaction. After a year-and-a-half, he\u2019d successfully identified a few\u00a0DNA sequences<\/a>\u00a0that could cut RNA molecules with a distinct chemistry. After this point he was excited to try \u201cstudying life\u201d as opposed to synthetic reactions.<\/p>\n Mid-way through his fourth year, he joined a biology lab in the College of Medicine\u00a0probing alternative splicing<\/a>\u00a0in liver and heart development. It was a new group with only a few members, and Parker had more experience as an undergraduate than some of the first-year graduate students, so he hit the ground running. His last-minute switch to biochemistry meant he had five years of studies instead of the usual four \u2014 totaling six full semesters (and several summers) in lab.<\/p>\n After identifying a key splicing protein required for the liver to fully mature in mice and humans, Parker became even more fascinated by molecular biology and determined to pursue a career in science with bigger picture applications.<\/p>\n At the urging of his advisor, Parker sent in his graduate school applications. He was primarily interested in microbiology and infectious disease research \u2014 although he had no prior experience working in bacteria, only a longstanding interest in the intersection of science and society. He ultimately chose MIT Biology because of the breadth of labs. He could join a microbiology lab, or pursue an entirely different path, all within the same department.\u00a0Gene-Wei Li<\/a>\u2019s lab seemed like \u201cthe perfect mix.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGene was asking questions in molecular biology from the unique perspective of a physicist, looking at biological questions in a way I had never even considered before,\u201d he says. \u201cGene had also just joined the department and wasn\u2019t tied to a specific field or model organism yet, so I had the chance to build my own projects from the bottom up; I wasn\u2019t just slotting in somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n