Lenses On Biology: Scientists And Science Students Tell Us Why Science Matters

There I sit, hunchbacked on the lab bench. I'm wearing a white labcoat and nitrile gloves and carefully pouring paraformaldehyde (PFA) powder into a beaker filled with phosphate buffered saline (PBS). I mix the powder with a stirring rod and place the beaker on a hot plate. This is all done inside a fumed cupboard. This is all very boring.

And yet making PFA solution is central to the collection of biological tissues such as brain and lung tissues. Breakthroughs in the fields of neuroscience, immunology, pharmacology, etcetera all rest on the proper preparation of PFA solution. Still, this does not make it any less boring. Sitting in a lab and making PFA solution is arguably the most unchallenging thing I did. Pipetting is a close second. With all the PFA solution that needed to be prepared, it was hard not to lose sight of why I was doing science. I was not the only one. My lab mates were engulfed in the same haze as I was.

Lenses on Biology, a free supplement (also available free online) in the latest issue of Nature, attempts to provide us with a reminder "of the enormous impact that biological science has on our world." The supplement comprises essays (and Q&A's) by top scientists in five scientific disciplines: cancer, stem cells, synthetic biology, ocean health and climate change. The essays, adapted from Principles of Biology, an interactive undergraduate textbook published by Nature Education (full disclosure: Nature Education also maintains Scitable), aim to put research in perspective and showcase how research in those five fields have changed our lives.

Although I have not yet read all the essays and Q&A's, Lenses on Biology is up till now a fascinating read. James Collins, a biomedical engineer, exquisitely explains how "bits and pieces come to life" as he recounts his specialty-synthetic biology-while environmental scientist Paul Falkowski passionately sensitizes us to the detracting effect of human activity on life-sustaining oceanic microorganisms. There is no better way to be reminded about the importance of science than to hear from experienced scientists themselves.

But equally inspiring was reading the adventures of five science students-ranging from high school student to post doc-published on a Nature blog as tie-in to Lenses on Biology. The students blogged about their experiences with science and how they jumped into science in the first place. They each followed different pathways to science from working with stroke patients to maintaining a science blog for 9^th grade biology class. However, it is clear that the central appeal to science is the same for all five of them. In the words of Katy Chalmers, an undergrad at North Carolina State University, and one of the student bloggers: "well, it's so interesting!"

Yes, yes it is! Forget the doing science part (which includes the dreaded PFA solution) but think about the mysteries unraveled by science. Vince Macri, a Masters student in biotechnology at Columbia University, tells us how nanotechnology and our knowledge of molecular biology are being used in an attempt to make drugs against cancer more effective and with less side effects. Then think about what science gives you the power to do: "identify questions with no answers and finally do something about it," says Dr. Holly Bik, a post doc at University of California, Davis.

Science is also beautiful. Christie Wilcox, a PhD student at the University of Hawaii, blogging about her new-found love for molecular biology writes: "there's something beautiful about the complexity of life at such a small scale."

But perhaps the most wonderful thing about science is that it explains our magical world. As Naseem Syed, a fellow Scitable blogger and high school student puts it: "everyone has a small curiosity hidden inside and it's humbling to understand even a small part of the amazing things going on in the universe. As a high school student, I've found that the more I advance in my biology studies, the more I appreciate everything around me."

The supplement and the tie-in blog series of Lenses on Biology show that science students and scientists are an enthusiastic bunch who wants to make the world a better place. This inspires confidence and will surely lift those in the stupor of lab work back to their motivated selves.

"I need to do some PFA," say I with a smile.

Reference: Brody, H. & Miko, I. Lenses on biology. Nature 483, S1 (2012).