Issue #16: June 22, 2025
Explore chemical biology with a scientist
who thought chemical biology might help make Pikachu real ⚡️
What’s Inside This Issue?
- Concepts and Terminology: Discover concepts and terminology introduced in the featured article.
- Featured Article: Dive into chemical biology and uncover how it’s rewriting the rules of life!
- About the Author: Join Lan Wu, a scientist and engineer fascinated by connecting chemistry, biology, and technology to revolutionize human health.
- Hands-On Activities: Have fun exploring the chemical reaction that makes a potato bubble!
- Environmental Equity and Sustainability: Discover how chemical biology can help build a healthier, more equitable, and sustainable world.
- Setting the Stage for Your Future: Explore a chemical biology pathway.
- Glossary: Recap key concepts and terminology from the featured article.
1. Concepts and Terminology
- Chemical Biology: This field combines chemistry and biology, where scientists design and use special chemical tools to explore, understand, and even control the complex processes happening inside living cells, often to find new ways to tackle diseases.
- DNA: The ultimate blueprint that genetic information flows from. Essential for understanding where the “code” comes from.
- RNA (Ribonucleic Acid): Very similar to DNA, RNA is a versatile molecule that acts as a “helper” or “messenger” carrying instructions from DNA to build proteins, and also plays other vital roles inside the cell.
- mRNA: This is the direct “messenger” that carries DNA’s instructions to build proteins. Chemical biologists frequently develop tools that interact with or modify mRNA.
- Protein: Proteins are important molecules that do most of the work in cells. They help with tasks like building cell parts, speeding up reactions, and sending signals. They’re essential for good cell health. Chemical biologists study how proteins work and sometimes design chemicals to change how they behave.
2. Featured Article
Chemical Biology: Life’s Toolkit, Hacked
By Lan Wu
That’s not science—it’s sorcery. Or at least, it sure feels like it.
Image created on Ideogram.ai.
When I was a kid, I thought chemistry was basically witchcraft. The dream? Make Pikachu real! Maybe even give him lightning powers.
Turns out, the real magic isn’t wands or spells—it’s molecules.
When you take the same power of chemistry and use it inside living cells—to tag, tweak, or rewire how life behaves—that’s not fantasy anymore. That’s chemical biology.
So… What Is Chemical Biology?
It might sound like someone smashed two sciences together and called it a major. But chemical biology is its own thing. Here’s how the family tree works:
Biologists watch cells and systems. They figure out how living things work and what’s normal or abnormal inside them. They also study how the environment affects life.
Chemists build molecules. They find out if chemical reactions can happen and how fast. They answer questions like how much of the starting chemicals will turn into something new. It gets even more interesting when many steps are needed to make a new molecule.
Biochemists dive into nature’s molecules to see how they work and behave. Some molecules inside cells are huge and are called macromolecules. Biochemists study the four main types: the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, carbohydrates (complex sugars called glycans), lipids (like fats), and proteins. They also study smaller molecules. They find out how fast reactions happen. (Issue #3 of this newsletter features an article about biochemistry.)
Chemical biologists design new molecules to sneak into cells. They use these tiny tools to “poke” life and see what happens. Want to know what a protein does in brain cells? Instead of deleting a gene and waiting weeks, a chemical biologist can send in a molecule to instantly block that protein in living cells. That’s science in stealth mode!
These four types of scientists often work together, especially in newer fields like chemical biology. Since the 1990s, chemical biology has grown as a way to use chemistry to solve biological problems. It’s behind “miracle drugs” like aspirin, and new tools that find and fix health issues.
Image credit: this Foundation with free images
DNA → RNA → Protein: Life’s Operating System
Imagine your body is a giant bakery. Inside every cell is the master cookbook: DNA. DNA holds all the recipes your body needs to build and work.
In real life, DNA is a long molecule shaped like a twisted ladder. It’s broken into 23 pieces called chromosomes. Each chromosome holds many recipes. Each recipe can make a protein in your cells. It’s like an encyclopedia, which is a set of books (genome), where each article (gene or recipe) is contained within a single book (chromosome) of the book set.
First Image: An Analogy
Imagine your complete instruction manual for life as a 23-volume set of encyclopedias, with half written by your mom and half by your dad.
Second Image: The Reality
This is your 23 pairs of chromosomes found in every cell’s nucleus. Each is a coiled DNA molecule containing stretches called genes.
These genes tell your cells how to make specific proteins, which then give each cell its unique identity and function.
What does DNA look like? Left: A step ladder. Right: Twist that ladder and you get something that resembles DNA.
What’s inside the recipe?
Imagine an aluminum step ladder. Now twist that ladder again and again until it coils into a spiral. Keep going—and you get something that looks like DNA.
This twisted ladder has two spirals wrapped around each other called the double helix. Each step (or rung) of the ladder holds two matching molecules that carry instructions to build and run the cell. The sides of the ladder secure everything together in the right order.
But the master cookbook (DNA) never leaves the “office” — the cell’s nucleus. When a cell needs a specific recipe, it makes a temporary copy called RNA. Think of RNA as a disposable photocopy of just one page from the DNA cookbook. This copy carries the instructions out to the “kitchen.”
The kitchen is a tiny cell structure called a ribosome, where the recipe is read and “baking” happens. Here, proteins are made.
What are proteins?
Proteins are the workers in your body. They do almost everything — building muscles, sending signals, fighting germs, and speeding up chemical reactions. Proteins are made from building blocks called amino acids. Some proteins, called enzymes, help speed up the chemical reactions that keep you alive.
So, to sum it up: DNA holds the instructions, RNA carries them, and proteins do the work. This one-way flow of information—from DNA to protein—is called the central dogma of biology. Altogether totally amazing, this process is at work in almost all of your cells. Fun Fact: did you know that you have roughly 30 trillion cells (30 x 1012 = 30,000,000,000,000)? That’s more than the number of stars in the Milky Way!
Central Dogma of Biology: DNA → RNA → Protein
Adapted from Biomed Guide: Central Dogma of Biology
Can We Do More Than Just Read the Recipe?
Every living thing follows this recipe. But what if we could do more than just understand it? What if we could watch it, change it, or even rewrite it?
That’s exactly what chemical biologists do. They ask:
Can we watch this happen in real time?
Can we tag proteins as they’re made?
Can we rewrite the recipe with ingredients that evolution never tried?
If the answer is yes — new tool unlocked.
Transcription & Translation: Cells That Read and Build
Imagine stepping into the kitchen to tweak the recipe while it’s baking. That’s the power of chemical biology.
Transcription is like copying a recipe from the master cookbook (DNA) onto a note card. That note card is messenger RNA—a temporary molecule carrying instructions out of the nucleus so the cell can build a protein.
Translation is when the kitchen (the ribosome) uses that note card to make the actual dish—a protein.
Understanding how cells read and build recipes gives scientists tools to jump in and make edits.
(A polypeptide is a chain of amino acids that folds into a specific shape to become a working protein.)
Image Credit & Learn more at Kahn Academy
Tools of Chemical Biology: Edit, Fix, Track
Chemical biologists develop tools and techniques, as well as special molecules, that can:
Interrupt the message if something is wrong
Rewrite the instructions to fix errors
Tag the final protein to follow where it goes inside the cell
These steps are like editing and tracking lines of code in real time, but inside a living cell.
One of the most powerful techniques of recent times is CRISPR-Cas9 (say “crisper”), a revolutionary method to edit DNA. Think of it as nano-scissors—tiny molecular tools that can precisely cut and repair DNA. Imagine performing surgery at the molecular level: locate, cut, and repair. It’s an extraordinary breakthrough! Fun Fact: Even middle school students are being taught how to use this breakthrough!
A real-life example:
KJ was born with a rare genetic defect that caused dangerously high ammonia levels in his blood. CRISPR therapy helped fix the faulty gene in his DNA, potentially saving him from a liver transplant. While he’s not fully cured, KJ’s improvement shows the huge promise of this technology.
Image credit: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
We’re just at the beginning of an amazing journey. Chemical biology is changing how we understand life and how we treat diseases by working at the tiniest levels inside our bodies. This is a new chapter in science — one that you could be part of, helping to shape the future of medicine and discovery.
3. About the Author
Hi, I’m Lan—a scientist and engineer who’s endlessly curious about how chemistry, biology, and technology can work together to improve human health.
I studied at UC Berkeley, where I explored everything from chemical biology to data science to the economics of healthcare systems. That’s where I fell in love with interdisciplinary thinking—solving big problems by connecting the dots between molecules, algorithms, and human needs.
These days, I’m especially fascinated by the intersection of AI, biotech, and healthcare innovation. Whether it’s using algorithms to rethink how we discover drugs or designing better systems for how care is delivered, I believe that bridging deep science with smart engineering can lead to breakthroughs that are both scalable and equitable.
Outside of work, I’m always looking for new ways to learn and grow. I’ve been studying Cantonese to reconnect with my heritage and expand how I think. That journey led me to meet Dr. Sik Lee Dennig, whose work and mentorship have shaped how I approach language, learning, and the kind of thoughtful, inclusive innovation I hope to be part of.
To me, chemical biology captures the spirit of modern science: creative, technical, and deeply human.
4. Hands-on Activities
Remember the cool DNA extraction from strawberries in Issue #3 🍓 and creating a homemade pH indicator with red cabbage from Issue #7? 🌈 Get ready for even more hands-on science! In this current Issue #16, we’re thrilled to unveil “The Spud’s Secret Bubbles” experiment, where you’ll unleash the hidden power of enzymes with a potato! 🥔
The Spud’s Secret Bubbles (Catalase in Action!) 🥔
Get ready to become a Kitchen Chemical Biologist!
Have you ever wondered how your body handles all the crazy chemical reactions happening inside you every second? Or why do some things break down super fast, while others take forever? Today, we’re diving into the amazing world of enzymes, the microscopic speed demons of life!
We’re going to put a humble potato to work and witness a fantastic chemical reaction that happens constantly in living things, including you!
A humble potato is bursting with energy!
Image created on Ideogram.ai
The Big Question: Can a simple potato break down a common household chemical right before your eyes? (Spoiler: YES!)
What’s Happening Here? (The Science Tease):
Your body, and even a potato, produces a slightly toxic chemical called hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as a byproduct of normal life processes. Sounds scary, right? Don’t worry! Nature has a solution: an incredible enzyme called catalase. Catalase is like a tiny, super-efficient clean-up crew that rapidly converts harmful hydrogen peroxide into two harmless substances: water (H2O) 💧 and oxygen gas (O2) 💨.
Today, you get to see this incredible clean-up job in action!
Catalase: Nature’s cleanup crew converting H₂O₂ to H₂O and O₂.
Image Credit: Adapted from Scientific American: Exploring Enzymes
Your Lab Supplies (aka Kitchen Staples):
- Hydrogen Peroxide (3% solution) 🧴: Found in the first-aid aisle. This is our “toxic” chemical.
- Raw Potato 🥔: Any type will do! This is our source of the amazing catalase enzyme.
- Clear Cup or Glass 🥛: So you can clearly see the magic happen!
- Knife 🔪: For cutting the potato.
- Safety glasses 🥽 : So you won’t accidentally get anything in your eyes.
Materials
Image created on Ideogram.ai
The Fun Part: Let’s Get Bubbling! bubbling!
- Prep Your Spud:
- Carefully cut a few pieces of raw potato. A cube about 1/2 inch (1 cm) on each side is perfect.
- Pro-Tip for Maximum Bubbles: If you want an even more dramatic show, grate a small amount of potato instead of just using a cube. More surface area = more enzyme exposure = more bubbles!
- Pour the Peroxide:
- Pour 1/4 to 1/2 inch of hydrogen peroxide into your clear glass, just enough to cover the potato piece(s) you’re about to add.
- The Grand Entrance:
- Gently drop your potato piece(s) into the hydrogen peroxide.
- Observe Like a Pro Biochemist!
- What do you see happening right away?
- Where are the bubbles coming from? Are they forming on the potato itself, or all over the liquid?
- How fast is it happening?
- What do you think those bubbles are? (Hint: Think about what catalase breaks hydrogen peroxide down into!)
Image created by Gemini
Thinking Like a Scientist: Extend Your Experiment!
Once you’ve seen the basic reaction, challenge yourself with these follow-up questions and mini-experiments:
The “No-Catalase” Control:
- Get a second clear cup and pour some fresh hydrogen peroxide into it.
- DO NOT add any potatoes.
- Observe: What happens in this cup? Does it bubble? (You might see a very slow bubble over a long time, but nothing like with the potato!) This shows you how much the potato’s enzyme speeds things up!
Cooked vs. Raw: The Heat Test!
- Hypothesis Time! What do you think would happen if you used a piece of boiled potato instead of raw? Will it bubble the same way? Less? Not at all? Why?
- Experiment: Carefully boil a small piece of potato for 5-10 minutes. It’s a good idea to have an adult nearby when boiling water. Let it cool down completely.
- Test: In a new cup with fresh hydrogen peroxide, drop in the cooked potato.
- Observe & Explain: Compare the bubbling to your raw potato experiment. You should find very little or no reaction! 📉 This is because high heat denatures enzymes – it changes their shape so they can no longer do their job. It’s like squashing a specific key so it no longer fits its lock!
Comparing Bubbling: Raw vs. Cooked Potato and Control
You’ve just witnessed enzymes in action!
These tiny biological catalysts are truly essential for life, making sure that all the necessary chemical reactions in your body happen at lightning speed. From digesting your food to protecting your cells, enzymes are working hard behind the scenes every second!
This simple potato experiment was actually a fantastic mini-demonstration of Chemical Biology in action! Chemical biologists explore how chemicals interact with living systems. Here, you saw a humble potato (a living system) using its amazing catalase enzyme (a biological “tool”) to break down hydrogen peroxide (a chemical). Watching the bubbles proved that chemistry is constantly happening inside us and all living things, and it showed how enzymes are key players in those vital chemical processes!
Clean Up:
All the materials (potato pieces and liquid) can be safely disposed of down the drain or in the regular trash. Wash your cups and hands, and you’re good to go!
What other common foods do you think might contain catalase? Why might they have it?
5. Environmental Equity and Sustainability
Chemical biology isn’t just about lab coats and complex molecules; it’s a powerful force for a healthier planet and fairer communities. Here’s how this cutting-edge science is tackling some of the biggest environmental challenges:
1. “Eating” Plastic Pollution with Engineered Enzymes ♻️🥤
The Challenge: We’re drowning in plastic! Especially tough plastics like those in water bottles can take hundreds of years to break down, polluting our oceans and land. This often harms communities living near landfills or coastlines the most.
The Chemical Biology Solution: Chemical biologists are designing and improving special biological tools called enzymes (they are proteins, but think of them as tiny, super-efficient chemical scissors!). These enzymes, often found in unique bacteria, can actually cut apart plastics into their basic building blocks. This means we can then reuse those blocks to make new plastic, creating a true “circular economy” for materials.
A Real-World Example: Scientists in Japan famously discovered a bacterium called Ideonella sakaiensis that could naturally break down PET plastic (the kind in most soda bottles). Chemical biologists are now actively engineering and improving enzymes from this and other bacteria to make them even faster and more effective at degrading plastics at lower temperatures, making industrial-scale recycling much more energy-efficient and sustainable.
Image Credit: C&EN: World’s first PET-munching microbe discovered
2. Microbial Clean-Up Crews for Pollution (Bioremediation) 🧪🌊
The Challenge: Accidental oil spills or industrial waste can release toxic chemicals into our oceans, rivers, and soil. These pollutants devastate wildlife and can seriously impact the health and livelihoods of nearby communities, especially those that rely on fishing or local resources.
The Chemical Biology Solution: Instead of harsh chemical clean-ups, chemical biologists harness and enhance nature’s own recyclers: microbes (like bacteria and fungi). They study how these tiny organisms naturally “eat” or break down harmful pollutants and then figure out how to boost their power.
A Real-World Example: After major oil spills, like the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists didn’t just rely on skimming oil off the surface. Chemical biologists helped identify and stimulate naturally occurring oil-eating bacteria already present in the ocean. By adding specific nutrients, they encouraged these microbes to multiply and break down the oil into less harmful substances like carbon dioxide and water, helping to restore the marine environment over time.
Mechanisms involved in bioremediation of toxic compounds
Image Credit: By Timmer26 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
3. Designing Greener Farming: Smarter Chemicals for Food 🌱🚜
The Challenge: Traditional farming often uses lots of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers to grow crops. While effective, these can run off into water supplies, contaminate soil, and harm beneficial insects, impacting both environmental health and the well-being of farmworkers and consumers.
The Chemical Biology Solution: Chemical biologists are developing more sustainable ways to protect crops and boost growth. They design “biopesticides” that are more specific to pests and less harmful to other life, or create “smart fertilizers” that release nutrients precisely when plants need them, reducing waste and runoff.
A Real-World Example: Instead of broad-spectrum chemical pesticides, chemical biologists have developed biopesticides using naturally occurring compounds or microbes. For instance, the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) produces a protein that is toxic to certain insect pests (like caterpillars) but is harmless to humans and most other animals. Farmers can spray this natural “biopesticide” on crops, protecting their harvest while significantly reducing the environmental impact and promoting safer farming practices for everyone.
Biopesticides like Bt help crops stay healthy
Image created by Gemini
6. Setting the Stage for Your Future: A Chemical Biology Pathway
Chemical Biology Careers: Your Future, Unleashed!
Think of chemical biology as your secret pass to some seriously cool jobs. You could be a:
- Discovery Scientist: Unraveling life’s biggest puzzles.
- Drug Creator: Designing new medicines that save lives.
- Molecular Hacker: Inventing tiny tools to see and change biology.
- Life Engineer: Building new biological systems from scratch.
- Biotech Boss: Starting your own company to bring amazing ideas to life.
It’s also a killer foundation for med school, grad school, biotech startups, or fusing AI with drug discovery!
How to Dive In: Your Starter Pack for Becoming a Lifehacker!
Want to go from curious kid to someone who can literally “hack” biology? Start here:
- Get Weird with Questions: Be super curious!
- Ace Core Classes: Crush Chemistry, Biology, Math, Physics, and Computer Science. These are your power-ups.
- Join the Squad: Hit up science fairs, clubs, summer programs, or online communities.
- Hands-On Fun: Try simple projects! Extract DNA from strawberries or check out CRISPR kits.
- Get Lab Experience: This is huge! Look for summer research or internships.
College Launchpad: Picking Your Major! 🎓
You don’t have to major in “Chemical Biology” (though some schools offer it!). Lots of paths lead here, like Biochemistry, Chemistry, Molecular Biology, or Bioengineering.
Key tip: No matter what you pick, look for universities with undergraduate research in areas like protein design or molecular probes. That’s where the real hacking begins!
7. Glossary
- Amino Acids: These are the small, fundamental building blocks that link together in long chains to create proteins.
- Chemical Biology: This field combines chemistry and biology, where scientists design and use special chemical tools to explore, understand, and even control the complex processes happening inside living cells, often to find new ways to tackle diseases.
- CRISPR Therapy: This therapy uses tiny, precise molecular tools (like “nano-scissors”) to cut and repair specific sections of DNA, aiming to correct genetic mistakes and treat diseases.
- DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid): Often called the “master blueprint” or instruction manual for life, it is found in almost all living things and holds all the genetic information needed to build and operate an organism. Yours is broken up into 23 pairs, for 46 total individual pieces, each called a chromosome. The whole set is called your genome. A part of one chromosome containing a protein recipe is called a gene.
- RNA (Ribonucleic Acid): Very similar to DNA, RNA is a versatile molecule that acts as a “helper” or “messenger” carrying instructions from DNA to build proteins, and also plays other vital roles inside the cell.
- mRNA (Messenger RNA): This is a specific type of RNA that carries the genetic “message”—the instructions for making a protein—from the DNA in the cell’s nucleus to the ribosomes, where proteins are actually assembled.
- Enzymes: These are special proteins that act like tiny biological “speed-up” machines. They make essential chemical reactions in your body happen incredibly fast.
- Protein: Proteins are important molecules that do most of the work in cells. They help with tasks like building cell parts, speeding up reactions, and sending signals. Chemical biologists study how proteins work and sometimes design chemicals to change how they behave.
- Transcription & Translation: These are the two main steps in creating a protein from DNA. First, the DNA’s instructions are copied into an RNA message (Transcription). Then, this RNA message is “read” to assemble the amino acids into a protein (Translation).
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