After the MPP workshop
Attending the MPP workshop is a great choice for me, where I was able to listen to plenty of very interesting talks and think more about this field.
Don’t have time to share those interesting talks. I do want to say something about the educational panel in the workshop. E K, W S, L Q and J B shared their experiences about teaching or attending classes. J S asked a question about how to make this field influential in 50 years (don’t remember the exact question).
50 years ago, most people did not realize that one day, electronic devices would significantly affect their lives. The world’s first electronic computer built in 1944 was slow and huge. As more advanced techniques were created, the development of computer went through a few generations of evolution. According to Moore’s Law, computers in the future generation should be even smaller and faster.
As an analog, take a look at our field, the first DNA based logic circuits were built in 2006. Different logic gates AND, OR and NOT were achieved and signal restoration, amplification, feedback, cascades were demonstrated. Another milestone is a 130 strand DNA circuit that is able to compute the square root of any 4-bit binary number. The results we have got now are kind of primitive, (but promising) — perhaps just like the primitive electronics 50 years ago. The DNA based circuit is quite slow and the complexity is limited as well. Isn’t it like the development of electronic computer?
The leakless system developed by my advisor and me and our collaborators should be a huge step forward to our field. Overcoming the bottleneck of slow and weak DNA strand displacement systems, we could push the boundary and develop faster and more robust circuits. That may be the second generation strand displacement system which could be written into the history of our field. I am so proud to be a member in this field.
An obvious question is how to educate next generation researchers and motivate more students to be interested in the research we are doing, especially since the field is emerging quickly and interdisciplinary. Students with computer science or electrical engineering background may find it difficult to start to do experiments; Students with chemistry or biology background may find it hard to understand the notion of computer science theory.
Not everyone is as lucky as students in Caltech. In Caltech, E’s class is a good starting point for students with computer science background. Then taking L’s class will be a transition from the perspective of theorist to experimentalist. And vise versa.
What about Harvard? I don’t think Harvard really has any theory person, so I guess the class in Harvard is more focused on programming and structure design, or perhaps some biophysics.
As for University of Washington, I am kind of surprised that some graduate students don’t really do experiments. What they need to do is to write their designs and in a high level language and then send to the lab technicians and let them do the real wet-lab experiments. Is it a good thing or not? Ignore that the experiment error will really be “systematic”. Interesting, huh. Nowadays I guess it’s perfectly okay that if you don’t know how the computer is working, you will still be able to be a good programmer. Will this field be like this in the future? Wow, I guess then the computer scientists and electrical engineers will dominate the field and experimentalist will be the labors! That’s definitely not something I want to see, thus I do need to learn more about CS and EE.
I guess D’s class is the second class in the world that really covers theory, since that’s his theory :–). I am taking the class now and may have more thoughts about it (how to motivate students from UT) after this semester.
If you would like to leave a comment, feel free to contact me at Mastodon @bios@moresci.sale