Who are we?
To put it shortly: constantly learning, passionate students, who are always looking for ways to deepen our knowledge and understanding about life science.
We have different backgrounds and academic levels, we study at different faculties. Our group is quite diverse – some of us are Swedish, others Swiss, Spanish, Polish or German… But how did we meet?
Our interest in science led us all to enter the iGEM (or “international Genetically Engineered Machine”) competition 2021. Participating teams from all over the world try to make innovative systems using synthetic biology and collaborating with other groups is a big part of it. After some first contacts and virtual meetings, we decided to make a common project and that’s how this blog was born!
Why are we doing a science blog?
In our era science is developing faster than ever, and we profit from it’s omnipresent gifts on a daily basis. However, as we move forward, research is becoming more and more specialized and complex. General public can find it difficult to keep up with the mechanisms behind new anti-cancer drugs, GMOs (genetically modified organisms), using animals as study subjects, biodiversity or climate change.
Through this blog, we wish to share and exchange scientific information and technological news, explain controversial topics and make you fascinated by life science. Our main goal is to write in an inclusive and understandable manner, so that the subject becomes accessible even if you have no scientific background. We firmly believe that making a link between science and society will have a positive impact on the world of tomorrow!
What can you find here?
This blog will deal with scientific topics that we thought were important, interesting or simply funny to deal with. This blog is not meant to be political: we do not consider ourselves in a position to decide what is right or wrong. Each topic will simply reflect the opinion of the scientific community on a particular theme. We will use reliable sources and reference them, if you want to dig deeper. Our personal opinions or thoughts will always be clearly distinct from the facts .
We hope you will enjoy our work and check for new posts every week!
Why “The Transcriptome”?
Transcriptome is the set of all RNA transcripts, including coding and non-coding, in an individual or a population of cells
Wikipedia
We thought it would make a good name for our blog, because it represents what we want to achieve – to be a vector of information. During the synthesis of a protein – a basic building block in our bodies, the “messenger RNA” (abbreviated mRNA, also known as “coding RNA”) is really important. It contains the instructions from the DNA to construct a protein. But to go from the mRNA to the protein, many different proteins and structures still need to be involved.
Transcription, making mRNA based on DNA, and translation, making proteins based on mRNA, made us think about the transition of scientific data to a generally understandable information. They both require an intermediate – a transcriptome for the cell, and a blog for science . Inspired by the machinery in our cells, we will try to take scientific data and make it accessible!