I struggle to conceive of how cancer could reproduce uncontrollably without enormous epigenetic suppression of mechanisms that reliably meter growth, without being effected by genetic alteration. I have poor grasp of the specifics (of the immense variety of cells, cancers, and relevant regulatory mechanisms), but the necessity of metering growth in response to the variables relevant to the cell suggests something quite out of the ordinary would have to be going on to cause methylation very uncharacteristic of cells, that so broadly impacted many metrics necessary to functionality that is effected very robustly.
I am deeply in love with the biochemical dance of life. Epiphanies envisioning the ebb and flow of morphing proteins entranced me in my early youth, and when I donated clock cycles to a distributed computing protein folding project. I have an addiction to such beautiful orchestration of our wealth of earthly mineral and chemical bounty life is. However, I last worked as a biologist in 2001, so I'm really just an ordinary handyman today. As much as I love biology and science, I am intolerant of institutions, really pathologically so, and very much prefer fixing and building things for salty people to struggling to cope with institutional hierarchies in order to get my research done. I had enough when wrangling over $78 for a leatherman dropped in the drink with a bean counter during a population dynamics study I was recording collection sites and collecting genetic samples for. The federal government wouldn't reimburse my personal expense for it, and seemed unable to understand I needed to unhook fish before I could sample them. It wasn't listed in the grant, so I couldn't get one from the petty bureaucrat that had a firm grasp on my snarglies.
I built a wheelchair ramp a couple days ago, replaced a window and repaired a deck, and put on a spare for a little old lady with a flat tire yesterday. It may seem trivial, but I just enjoy the direct interaction with people, their immediate and easily understood needs, and being able to beneficially impact them in such a direct and personal way. I like the technologies and labors of building things, the sawdust in my eye despite my best safety squint.
So I'm not a 'real' scientist, but I feed my need for biological beauty by reading research incessantly, every day.
Nah man, I'm into all of it. Science is just cool because you get to chase the unknown and have a natural curiosity. I really want to have a farm someday where I can just take some time to build stuff and grow/raise my own food.
I've been going through the grind of being a first responder (firefighter/paramedic) and now I'm transitioning into a science space. I study neuroscience and to a lesser degree computational stuff. I really enjoy genetics, but I'm very much a student at this point. Still, I've gotten the chance to contribute to some really cool stuff in the biomedical space. Comparative/translational stuff and biochemistry have captured my attention lately, but I have to admit that I know very little about chemistry in general, so I'll likely be pursuing a year and some change of chemistry work after my graduation. I'm leaning heavy into the idea that I might pursue a life of poverty as a PhD, but at least I won't be caught in the drudgery of the corporate machine.
If it wasn't for that, I'd be absolutely happy in a trade job as long as I got some semblance of a work life balance.
Also, I might have so many questions for you lol. I just started doing some immunohistochemistry stuff the other day and I was amazed at the level of different organsims and techniques that were strung together for some of the staining process. It was really cool.