John Rinn, Bioextreme
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!
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