briantball.org / bioengineering
Bioengineering
You don't understand something until you've built one. Biology is becoming an engineering discipline — and you can start now, in high school, with real tools.
The idea that connects everything here
DNA is the story of clay told in molecules. Life is literally formed from the earth, organized not by a central controller but through distributed, self-organizing order. Genes are expressed, not executed. The system is linguistic, not mechanical. Hayek's insight about spontaneous order in economics describes how living systems actually work: no master gene coordinates the organism, just as no central planner coordinates the economy. The morphogen gradient is a price system. This is the field where computation and biology are the same thing — and anyone who tells you otherwise has made a category error.
How to think about this field
You don't know it until you've built it
Polya said: before you solve a problem, draw a picture. In biology: before you understand gene expression, run a PCR. Before you understand feedback loops, tune one. The bench closes the loop that the textbook leaves open. Conway's Game of Life is the simplest existence proof — you don't understand emergence until you've watched it appear from a few simple rules.
Biology and computation are the same thing
Separating them is a category error. A genome design system that can't be validated at the bench is a map without territory. A wet lab that can't be modeled computationally is flying blind. The programs that keep them together were built on this conviction — and the students who come out of them think differently than those who didn't.
Spontaneous order is the deep pattern
Hayek, Bateson, Stuart Kauffman — all pointing at the same thing from different directions. Complex adaptive systems organize from local rules, not central control. This is true of economies, ecosystems, and embryos. Understanding one helps you understand all three.
Books worth reading first
book
Jennifer Doudna — the CRISPR story from one of its inventors. Science and ethics, honestly told.
Amazon →
book
Walter Isaacson — Doudna and the gene editing revolution. Accessible and current.
Amazon →
book
George Church — synthetic biology's most ambitious thinker. Challenging and worth it.
Amazon →
book
Dawkins — the clearest explanation of how evolution works at the gene level. Start here.
Amazon →
book
Stuart Kauffman — self-organization and the origins of complexity. The Hayek connection made explicit.
Amazon →
book
Gregory Bateson — patterns, systems, mind as process. The philosophy underneath synthetic biology.
Amazon →
Hands-on kits — no specialized lab needed
kit
Amino Labs
Engineer-it Kit and others. Genetic engineering in any classroom. Strong curriculum and community support.
amino.bio →
kit
BioBits (MIT / Northwestern)
Freeze-dried cellular components — just add water. Teaches gene expression without living cells. Safe anywhere.
wyss.harvard.edu →
kit
CRISPRkit (Stanford)
~$2 per student. Smartphone-based quantification. Real CRISPR experiments in high school. Nature Communications 2024.
stanford.edu →
kit
Bento Lab
Portable DNA lab — PCR, gel box, centrifuge in a laptop-sized case. From UCL iGEM alumni. Built exactly because of the bench-gap problem.
bento.bio →
Essential sites
site
iGEM Foundation
The international competition that put synthetic biology in high school students' hands. 80,000+ trained since 2003. High school division active.
igem.org →
site
BioBrick Parts Registry
The genetic parts library teams use in iGEM. Start here to understand the design vocabulary of synthetic biology.
parts.igem.org →
site
UCSC Genome Browser
The canonical tool for exploring real genomic data. What researchers actually use. Free, powerful, learnable.
genome.ucsc.edu →
site
NCBI / GenBank
The world's genomic data repository. Real sequences, real organisms, freely accessible. The raw material.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov →
site
Addgene
Nonprofit plasmid repository. Where researchers share genetic tools. Understand what's actually being built and used.
addgene.org →
site
OpenWetWare
Open lab protocols from researchers worldwide. How to actually do the experiments, not just read about them.
openwetware.org →
Companies that grew from iGEM projects
company
Ginkgo Bioworks
Organism design platform. Public company. Roots in MIT 2004.
company
Benchling
Life sciences R&D cloud. Standard tool in biotech labs. MIT 2012.
company
Caribou Biosciences
CRISPR therapeutics. Founded by Rachel Haurwitz, iGEM 2005 participant.
company
FREDsense Technologies
Biosensors for water quality monitoring. Calgary iGEM alumni.
company
Jellatech
Human proteins via synthetic biology. Founded by University of Copenhagen iGEM alumna.
company
RhizeUP
Combating fertilizer runoff. Founded by a high school iGEM student. $50k grant winner 2024.
What ten years of student-led iGEM work looked like — UC Santa Cruz 2014–2025
| Year | Project | What they built |
|---|
| 2025 | safeTEA | Targeted extraction of aflatoxin B1 (a food toxin linked to cancer) from water using engineered aptamers |
| 2024 | LIFT | Sustainable infant formula alternative using spirulina — improved genetic engineering techniques for L. fusiformis |
| 2023 | TABI | Toxic algal bloom interference — accessible solution to dangerous microcystin levels in local freshwater |
| 2022 | Helo | Equitable access to Type 2 Diabetes treatment for underserved communities |
| 2021 | Progenie | Disarming pathogenic E. coli without antibiotics — sequence-specific gene elimination |
| 2020 | Komaplastics | Biodegradable thermoplastic from bacterial cellulose to replace polyethylene agricultural films |
| 2019 | Vitrium | Heat-stabilized Newcastle Disease vaccine using a "glass shell" thermal protection method |
| 2018 | Poppy | Progesterone-producing yeast strain — "grow at home" contraceptive for resource-constrained communities |
| 2017 | Bugs Without Borders | Decentralized production of medical supplements using engineered Spirulina |
| 2016 | Sugar Slugs | Agricultural waste → zero-calorie sweetener via synthetic biology |
| 2015 | Cellulose to Butanol | Engineered microorganism for sustainable bio-butanol production from cellulose |
| 2014 | Biofuel | Engineering archea to digest cellulose into biofuel |
Dave Bernick built and ran the UCSC iGEM program for over a decade. Ten consecutive gold medals. Twelve years of students tackling real problems — food safety, climate, medicine, equity — with real tools. That program is ending. What it proved doesn't end with it: that undergraduates given genuine problems, real equipment, and a teacher who believed in them could produce work that mattered. The iGEM Foundation continues at
igem.org →