On chickens and chicks

One of the things I like the most about Synthetic Biology is that this is a brand new scientific framework. No one can say ‘I have been an expert on that for three decades’. In fact, a senior researcher is likely to have a shorter research experience than a 30-years old synthetic biologist. And this is good, because it crashes down barriers such as the ‘experience length’ factor.

One of the things I like the least about the scientific career is the condescending attitude towards young researchers, particularly in the Old World. Getting older is just a matter of time, not a merit. And very often incredibly bright very young researchers are not given the merit they deserve for their contribution, which of course lacks the depth of experience but often shows a sparkly and amazingly creative character. It’s like a chicken making fun of a falcon chick, so small, so thin. Yes. But it will grow up and become the fastest creature on air, whereas the chicken…Well, we all now about chicken’s flight ability.

Now, look at the picture below. These are the twelve students participating in the Valencia Biocampus 2012 iGEM project. They are working 7/7 days, designing the experiments by themselves, analyzing data with almost no help and designing and building with their hand the devices they need for the project (I will show several amazing examples of those in this blog).

A handful of falcon chicks? Maybe. But falcons, indeed.