Grace Zhang

Attractions | Hanszen | Co ‘29

“Seeing Isn’t Believing: The Great Blind Spot Cover-Up”

I’ve always liked writing since I was young. I wrote creatively when I was younger–short stories and poems–and I always knew I’d be a STEM major. So science plus writing just felt like combining my two biggest interests….For Attractions, I worked on a Blind Spots article. It’s about how there’s a small patch in our vision where we don’t actually get any information–because where the optic disc connects, there are no rods or cones. So whenever we look at anything, we’re missing data from that area. But the brain disguises it by coming up with what it thinks should be there. I included this little test–a cross and a circle–and if you move the screen just right, the other object disappears. I thought it was really cool…Originally, I thought it would just be a quick read about this cool thing the eye does. But it expanded into something bigger. And honestly, the time just flew by while I was writing. That’s how I realized how much I really enjoy science writing. I don’t know if it’ll be a career, but I definitely want to stay involved…When I write, I usually start with a quick outline–just what I want to cover. Then I go into the physiology, the anatomy of the eye, and also the neuroscience side–things like predictive coding. I even brought in some linguistics without realizing it at first. What started as something specific to vision turned into something about how the brain hides inconsistencies from us in general. The biggest challenge was finding a variety of academic sources and figuring out what figure to include. I wasn’t sure if my demonstration really counted as a figure. But through researching–reading journals, going through Nature and PubMed–I ended up learning way more than I expected…One of the most rewarding moments was testing the visual illusion with my friends. I turned my computer around and asked them to try it. They moved the screen back and forth and suddenly went, ‘Oh my God, it disappeared.’ Seeing other people actually experience it made everything feel real.

Anika Kulkarni

Breakthroughs | Will Rice | Co ‘28

“Advancing Genome Editing Safety: Quantifying and Predicting CRISPR Off-Target Effects”

I pretty much jumped to apply. I was debating between a few sections, but I ended up choosing Breakthroughs because of the opportunity to actually talk to experts, subject matter experts, and hear their perspective. I wanted to learn more about the cutting-edge work being done here, what their day-to-day life looks like, and how the entire research process works from start to end. I even had a professor in mind when I applied. Breakthroughs felt like the perfect way to talk to him and share his research in a scientific format… I’m a sophomore majoring in bioengineering and data science, and genomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics are spaces I’ve been incredibly interested in for a while. A lot of the innovation in this field is happening right here at Rice, so that personal connection mattered to me. I decided to interview Dr. Gang Bao. He’s been working for decades on making gene editing safer, first by identifying on-target and off-target effects, and now by engineering safer delivery mechanisms, especially using nanoparticles. Considering how new and dynamic this field is, especially with CRISPR emerging in the last decade, he’s really been a pioneer….Before even reaching out, I wanted to make sure I was well researched. I read his lab website, his recent papers, reviews in the field, just to make sure I could ask meaningful questions and interpret his insights accurately. After the interview, I stayed in communication with him to make sure everything I wrote was technically accurate and represented the lab properly… One of the most eye-opening things I learned was about in vivo gene editing: the idea of editing genes directly inside the patient. Right now, most gene editing is done in vitro, but that doesn’t work for diseases like muscle or heart disorders….Even though it was only a 30-minute interview, I learned so much. Being able to hear how he connected the past, present, and future of the field, and how his lab has been part of that evolution, was an incredible experience. Breakthroughs is technical, but its real strength is in these conversations. You’re translating scientific insights into something meaningful, something social and personal, not just technical. That’s the power of this kind of storytelling.

Ankita Rajesh

Connections | Jones | Co ‘28

“Amplifying Immunity: Mechanisms, Efficacy, and Promise of Self-Amplifying RNA Vaccines”

I started Catalyst my freshman year by writing an article for Attractions, which is geared more toward a general audience. I’m pre-grad, so I’ll be doing a lot of scientific writing in my life, and I’d never really done it before. Catalyst felt like a really good introduction. I really enjoyed that article, so this year I wanted to level up…Connections is more like a full research or review article, with a lot more detail and research, but I really enjoyed doing it. I chose to write about a newer form of vaccine technology called self-amplifying RNA. You might have heard of mRNA vaccines from COVID. This is kind of an elevated version that amplifies the immune response, lasts longer, and uses a lower dose…I became more interested in vaccine development this year, especially because vaccine hesitancy has grown so much. I wanted to understand the exact mechanisms of how vaccines work, because it’s not really a secret. Scientists aren’t trying to hide this information. I wanted to write something that could introduce this technology to the Rice community, so that if you see it in the news five years from now, you’re not like, ‘That’s scary, I don’t know how that works.’...It was also surprising how similar this new technology is to what we already have. It’s really not that different. It just encodes one gene that lets it self-amplify. That small change makes a huge difference. And a lot of this information was in open-source journals. It was cool to see how accessible it all was…Finishing the article was really rewarding. I wrote a 12-page, single-spaced research paper with 26 sources. I did the research, created the figures, and put everything together. It was the first full research paper I’d written that wasn’t for a class, and it proved to me that I can learn and communicate a complex topic in a relatively short amount of time….You don’t really realize how much time goes into research until you do it yourself, not just writing, but researching, editing, making figures, writing captions. It’s time-consuming, but it’s also really rewarding. I’d invite anyone who’s even slightly interested to try it. Catalyst has so many sections, and it doesn’t have to start with a full research paper.