Sigma BioBlogs

Sarah Wyatt and I have something in common.  Everyone from our sleepy  little towns  thought we were smart enough to be a doctor or a nurse.  Now they just shake their heads, as she is a gravitational biologist who has studied plants for NASA, and I get to interview her and then post it to “the internets”.

Sarah grew up a farm girl in Western Kentucky.  She always loved nature, climbing trees and pitching in to help run the family farm (Here’s where our stories diverge..  I did the cooking, fed the family and the cuter animals)

While in college she met Joe Kuc, who was studying signal transduction in plants. Impressed with his approach, she adopted some of his philosophies into her own teaching style.  This includes the allocation of her time as follows:

1. 20% Outreach to the community
2. 40% Research
3. 40% Teaching

After receiving her PhD, she did a post-doc with with NASA researchers at  NC State as part of NSCORT The NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training. There she studied the effect of gravity on plant growth, and has been studying it ever since. For Sarah, the real fascination lies with the fact that  plant life has intelligence independent of a nervous system used to relay external signals from the environment..

She believes that plants might be the highest life form on earth…if you challenge that point she will let you know about totipotency…the plant cell’s ability to differentiate…then undifferentiate, assuming an entirely new role.

This post brought to you by Sigma Life Science Plant biotech products

John Rinn is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, but not like the professors I remember.   Those guys were 40 years older than me, and their knowledge was gained from 20-30 years in the lab.  John Rinn knows cool skater and snowboarder lingo (moguls, lines, turns, trix), is the same age as me, and his bioknowledge comes from playing with new technologies to demonstrate the unthinkable.

His Nature publication on LincRNAs (large intervening non-coding RNAs)  has RNA experts divided over whether or not non-coding RNA’s are functional.   By developing technology to look closely at non-coding RNA’s, his lab has identified over 5000 LincRNAs (large intervening non-coding RNAs).  They are functioning RNA’s that play a part in cell cycle regulation, and maintaining embryonic stem cell pluripotency.  Dr. Rinn is also investigating epigenetic aspects, which he describes as Genomic Origami.

The beginning of bio for Rinn was not a direct path.  He chose a university based on its proximity to mountains for snowboarding…and his life long hero is middle to long distance runner Steve Prefontaine…whose motto is “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift”

Thanks to his passion for new types of runs in snowboarding, Rinn injured himself and was bound to a hospital bed, and that’s where science really started to open up for him.

John Rinn gets some air

WBB: Where does Bio Begin for you?

JR: With coffee!  I spend 9-10am typically as an hour of reflection.

WBB: Interesting.  I’ve heard it said by more than one scientist that downtime is when great breakthroughs and ideas happen. Is that true for you?

JR: Yes. I actually get the best ideas when I go snowboarding.  It’s then that I have the time for my mind to drift, and dream up new experiments.

WBB: So you feel that snowboarding and science go well together?

JR: Yes…In snowboarding, if you do the same thing over and over again…it just gets old.  So you try different combinations of tricks…from a cliff to a mogul through trees to another mogul then jump off a cliff…that makes a beautiful run.  It’s the same with experimentation, except this time instead of looking for lines down the mountain you are trying to uncover beauty and truth by combining different experiments.  One experiment is not the key, it’s the “line of experiments”.  You need a combination that is synergistic.

WBB: So snowboarding and science do have a lot in common!

JR: Yes! And pain is always a part of the learning.  In snowboarding it’s injuries.  In science it’s in negative experiments.

WBB: Be careful out there!

This post brought to you by the following Sigma Life Science Bioareas

• Biomapping- Genomics tools and resources
• Epigenetics tools and resources
• Bioreprogramming -Stem Cell Biology reprogramming tools and resources

We have been using biowords for weeks now to describe everything; biocool, bioblog, biotweeple, biofacebooking, biosocial, biobling…

The word for today is “Biocontest”.

The contest is something we planned when we first posted our Wherebiobegins twitter account.  We knew that if there were great prizes like a Targeted Knockout, a CompoZr Integration kit, or an Apple® iPad,  we would see some creative biosparks flying across the web.

Here’s how it will work:

• Think back, and determine the story of what sparks biology for you.  Nature? experimentation?
• Tell your PI you need time to create an entry that will win a CompoZr ZFN
• Tell the story either through an essay, a video, or an image .
• Go to WhereBioBegins.com/contest and upload it.
• Tell your friends to vote for your entry! “Category” prizes will be awarded based on popular votes.
• Check back frequently to see if you are winning!
• Know your legalese

If you have problems with your submission, please email yfgsuggestions@sial.com.

Good Luck!  We look forward to seeing your entries!