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When people consider careers in STEM, a few familiar fields usually come to mind: engineering, medicine, technology, or research. While all of these fields are extremely valuable and important for society, they are just a small fraction of what is possible with a STEM degree.

Proteins are vital to all processes in life. They are a chain of smaller units: amino acids. The sequence of these amino acids is encoded in DNA, but a protein’s function is heavily dependent on its 3D structure. This amino acid chain is able to fold upon itself with many complex twists, turns and tangles. Even small changes to this structure can dramatically alter its behaviour. In fact, many human diseases are caused by detrimental changes to protein folding. 

Have you ever wondered how the human body heals itself, or what exact mechanisms occur in the body to trigger this regeneration after injury? For centuries, humans have relied on countless treatments that target symptoms rather than the root cause of disease, but what if we could activate the body’s own healing powers to actually repair or regrow damaged tissues? That goal is at the heart of a rapidly growing field known as regenerative medicine, a field that seeks not just to manage illnesses, but ultimately restore normal function.

Contemporary conservation management faces a variety of challenges. One of those challenges being the ability to identify species accurately when visual identification is unreliable. Conservation teams generally have two approaches to biomonitoring, visual identification and genetic identification. The former provides a real-time and inexpensive way to classify species, but runs the risk of human error when working with messy ecosystems in the field.

For a long time, biotechnology has relied on tools that allow scientists to study and manipulate DNA. However, few discoveries have been as innovative as CRISPR. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, and is a gene-editing technology that lets scientists make targeted changes to DNA. While the name may sound complex, the actual idea is simple. CRISPR acts like a pair of molecular scissors to cut DNA at a specific location so it can be edited.

One step onto any college campus is all it takes to come across a student with a caffeinated drink in hand. Whether it’s a bright matcha or a bubbly energy drink, caffeine culture is present every day in student life. Reasons for consumption vary, from needing an early pick-me-up before morning lectures to a flavorful boost for studying, and highlights the deep connection between caffeine and students in this discussion.

Traditional cheese is made by curdling milk using rennet or natural acids, causing it to separate into solid curds and liquid whey. The curds are then drained, pressed, and often aged in various ways to develop the flavor of different types of cheese. Casein is the major component of these curds and is responsible for giving cheese the beloved creamy, stretchy texture that has been missing from veggie-based cheese products. To fulfil this market gap, a group of students at UC Davis kickstarted the Real Vegan Cheese Project (RVC).

The escalating scale of plastic waste present on Earth is an urgent issue, with nearly 450 million tonnes of plastic waste produced annually, 80% of which is released into the environment. Although plastic is a versatile, revolutionary material, its durability and rate of production offers a global-scale challenge. Plastic production has more than doubled in the last two decades, causing its pollution to threaten ecosystem conditions and human health.

Picking an academic path can be challenging, especially when there are many different ways to reach a specific goal. Depending on what research specialty you want to go into there may be different paths to get you there. While all this sounds challenging this blog post explores how to navigate your academic and professional journey in research effectively. A research career is a journey that begins with curiosity and evolves through learning, hands-on experiences, and perseverance.