Learn:✅

Writing an article is the best way for you to understand and retain knowledge in biology because you will find there are concepts you thought you understood, but you really don’t. So it forces you to read more papers and watch more Youtube videos to ensure the article is understandable and engaging for the audience.

<aside> 💡 I’d recommend the student should write 1 article per week and at least 5 articles in total. They should include technical details in genetic engineering/ biology in general that are explain in a simple and fun way. Also, mention the impact and implication that certain innovations have on humanity.

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• Examples:
  • How Genetic Sequencing Will Change the Way We Live
  • CRISP and Stem Cells: Changing Cellular Identity and Saving Lives
  • The Next Gen of Antibiotics: Phage Therapy

Review:

You can't genetically engineer anything without a broad understanding of genome biology.

• Read review articles to get a high-level knowledge of genetics and know what the latest research in the field is. Here are 10 papers I have read and recommended to me by Farah Qaiser, my mentor at SickKids (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B9AQbyFmVdcd5PBJNLS74lMwgRWNv3vz7kDTgUij0ZM/edit#) If you read one paper a day/2 days, this should take ~2 weeks.
• Write a review article about a specific topic in genetic engineering - don't be broad and high level, get specific.

Apply✅

• Online Simulation:
  • Example: Michael Trinh - Modelling the TDE-I Protein Complex / sgRNA2
  • Doing a simulation is the best way to do an Apply. If you need a lab, it could take you a long time to complete your Focus. Try to do as much as you can with the resources you have at home (simulation kits, your computer, home materials, etc).
• Tip from Apurva: (Expert)
  • "I personally found Genome Compiler video tutorials as a great first replicate (see my molecular cloning article for an example project), and then used Benchling for my 2nd one for engineering CRISPR/Cas9 experiments (click here to see). Eliza has a good article about this also - https://youtu.be/nOfXBMbE8HY. I can't emphasize this enough, ESPECIALLY WITH COVID."
• Tip from Sam:(Expert)
  • If you want to take a deeper dive into CRISPR, good sources would be addgene.org/crispr/ and the NCBI government sources.
  • For the replicate, you could include sites like benching, which can help with sequencing and also has a CRISPR function so you can simulate a knockout, or create new sequences. You can find premade sequences of different CRISPR variations on addgene.org as well. Also, the use of https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi helps with the process called "BLAST" where you can find how many places have the same repeating sequences, which can help to make sure the gene editing doesn't accidentally edit another part of the genome with the exact same complementary sequence as the gRNA. Kits are available and I would recommend the-odin.com as they have some kits that are really cool, but also help you to understand what is going on during the whole experiment.
• Working in a lab:
  • How to get in the lab in the first place: Trust me, it is a probability game. You have to email as many professors as you humanly can. I’d recommend sending emails to 10+ professors whose research you're interested in and set up a meeting with them.
  • Tell them what you have learned, and why you are super excited about this field and their research, be prepared and ask good questions. The best questions are the ones they don’t know how to answer because their lab is still investigating them.
  • What I did was I read the Future Directions section on their research papers and personal research on the possible ways to solve those questions. Then, you can bring them up in your meetings as recommendations.
  • For me, the best way to learn is to be in a lab. I’ve found that I can learn a bunch of theoretical concepts at home, but it is only until I enter the lab that I learn about statistical analysis and realize that I have to learn stats. For my fruit fly project, I also learned much new software to do tasks such as graphing a survival curve to estimate how long the fruit flies would live, performing confocal microscopy to see if the gene is edited in the embryo, sorting male flies from virgin females and have them mate, etc.
  • In addition, you can ask to help graduate students conduct experiments, so you can learn how to design your own experiment in the future. Me, I learned how to come up with good questions, viable hypotheses, and specific experiments I have to perform to evaluate my hypothesis.
  • The learning curve is quite steep when you first entered the lab. Once you’ve got better and been in tune with all experiments and equipment, you can ask the graduate to help them write research papers. If you do your job well and contribute a significant portion to the paper - both experiment and writing-wise - you can get your name beside the leading authors. This is so important in establishing legitimacy, especially in academia when everything is about how many papers you’ve written and the number of citations per paper!

Create✍🏼

• This is when you come up with a solid research project of your own. You will need a mentor (ideally the professor you have been working with), a problem, and an idea of what you want to do. Here are some starters for you:
  • One example is this 16 year-old-girl who created a speedy Ebola test and won Google Science Fair Grand Prize. I think this idea is so simple and ingenious, yet it solved a BIG PROBLEM. Once you have got your idea together, propose it to your professor and work through it.
• P/s: You can also submit your project to legit competitions like Intel ISEF, Canada Wide Science, Google Science Fair, and Safino Biogenius, and potentially win up to $100,000, alongside with features on media both in the States and Canada. I genuinely think some TKS students can win because if you look through the list of the winners, their projects are not actually that advanced or complicated. The solution needs to be viable and solve a significant problem, which is exactly what we are doing at TKS. No downsides in applying, especially to internationally recognized competitions that you can probably win! The age range is 13-18.
• Depending on the project you do, some can take weeks, while others take months.

Tip: Find Mentors🎯

• After you learn the article, reach out to experts in the industry and try to find a mentor. They will keep you accountable, teach you valuable things, and it will make your Focus real - not just feel like a school project.
• Find these mentors by looking at the specific area of research you're interested in, then look at who is writing those papers. Reach out to them on LinkedIn, or you'll have to figure it out and hustle.