When Hanjun Lee arrived at MIT, he was set on turning into a Course 5 chemistry pupil. Based mostly on his expertise in highschool, biology was all about rote memorization.
That modified when he took course 7.03 (Genetics), taught by then-professor Aviv Regev, now head and government vice chairman of analysis and early improvement at Genentech, and Peter Reddien, professor of biology and core member and affiliate director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Analysis.
He notes that buddies from different colleges don’t cite a single course that modified their main, however he’s not alone in selecting Course 7 due to 7.03.
“Genetics has this attention-grabbing power, particularly in MIT biology. The division’s historic — and lively — function in genetics analysis ties straight into the best way the course is taught,” Lee says. “Biology is about logic, scientific reasoning, and posing the proper questions.”
A number of years later, as a educating assistant for sophistication 7.002 (Fundamentals of Experimental Molecular Biology), he got here to worth how a lot care MIT biology professors soak up presenting the fabric for all provided programs.
“I actually respect how a lot effort MIT professors put into their educating,” Lee says. “As a TA, you understand the fantastic thing about how the professors set up this stuff — as a result of they’re educating you in a selected method, and you may grasp the fantastic thing about it — there’s a magnificence in learning and discovering the patterns in nature.”
An enterprise to use
To attend MIT in any respect hadn’t precisely been a lifelong dream. In reality, it didn’t happen to Lee that he may or ought to apply till he represented South Korea on the forty ninth Worldwide Chemistry Olympiad, the place he gained a Gold Medal in 2017. There, he had the possibility to talk with MIT alumni, in addition to present and aspiring college students. Greater than half of these aspiring college students ultimately enrolled, Lee amongst them.
“Earlier than that, MIT was this almost legendary establishment, so that have actually modified my life,” Lee remembers. “I heard so many alternative tales from folks with so many alternative backgrounds — all converging in direction of the identical enthusiasm in direction of science.”
On the time, Lee was already attending medical college — a six-year undergraduate program in Korea — that might result in a steady profession in drugs. Attending MIT would contain each altering his profession plans and uprooting his life, leaving all his family and friends behind.
His mother and father weren’t particularly captivated with his want to review at MIT, so it was as much as Lee to satisfy the appliance necessities. He awoke at 3 a.m. to search out his personal option to the one SAT testing web site in South Korea — an enterprise he now remembers with amusing. In simply three months, he had gathered every thing he wanted; MIT was the one establishment in the USA Lee utilized to.
He arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2018 however attended MIT just for a semester earlier than returning to Korea for his two years of necessary navy service.
“Throughout navy service, my aim was to learn as many papers as potential, as a result of I questioned what matter of science I’m drawn to — and lots of the papers I used to be studying had been authored by folks I acknowledged, individuals who taught biology at MIT,” Lee says. “I grew to become actually considering most cancers biology.”
Return to MIT
When he returned to campus, Lee pledged to do every thing he may to satisfy with school and focus on their work. To that finish, he joined the MIT Undergraduate Analysis Journal, permitting him to interview professors. He notes that the majority MIT school are captivated with being contacted by undergraduate college students.
Stateside, Lee additionally reached out to Michael Lawrence, an assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical Faculty and assistant geneticist at Mass Common Most cancers Middle, a few preprint regarding APOBEC, an enzyme Lee had studied at Seoul Nationwide College. Lawrence’s lab was trying into APOBEC and most cancers evolution — and the concept that the enzyme would possibly drive drug resistance to most cancers therapy.
“Since he joined my lab, I’ve been completely amazed by his scientific skills,” Lawrence says. “Hanjun’s scientific maturity and achievements are extraordinarily uncommon, particularly in an undergraduate pupil.”
Lee has made new discoveries from genomic knowledge and was concerned in publishing a paper in Molecular Cell and a paper in Nature Genetics. Within the latter, the lab recognized the supply of background noise in chromosome conformation seize experiments, a way for analyzing chromatin in cells.
Lawrence thinks Lee “is destined for excellent management in science.” Within the meantime, Lee has gained priceless insights into how a lot work most of these achievements require.
“Doing analysis has been rewarding, but it surely additionally taught me to understand that science is nearly one hundred pc about failures,” Lee says. “It’s these failures that find yourself main you to the trail of success.”
Widening the scope
Lee’s private motto is that to excel in a selected area, one will need to have a broad sense of what your entire area seems like, and suggests different budding scientists enroll in programs distant from their analysis space. He additionally says it was key to see his friends as collaborators slightly than rivals, and that every pupil will excel in their very own distinctive method.
“Your MIT expertise is outlined by interactions with others,” Lee says. “They’ll assist establish and form your path.”
For his accomplishments, Lee was not too long ago named an American Affiliation for Most cancers Analysis Undergraduate Scholar. Final yr, he additionally spoke on the Gordon Analysis Convention on Cell Progress and Proliferation about his work on the retinoblastoma gene product RB. Lee was additionally among the many 2024 Biology Undergraduate Award Winners, acknowledged with the Salvador E. Luria Prize for excellent scholarship and analysis of publication high quality.
Inspired by constructive course evaluations throughout his time as a TA, Lee hopes to encourage different college students sooner or later via educating. Lee has not too long ago determined to pursue a PhD in most cancers biology at Harvard Medical Faculty, though his pursuits stay broad.
“I need to discover different fields of biology as properly,” he says. “I’ve so many questions that I need to reply.”
Though initially resistant, Lee’s mom and father are actually “immensely proud to be MIT mother and father” and shall be coming to Cambridge in Could to rejoice Lee’s commencement.
“All through my years right here, they’ve been capable of see how I’ve modified,” he says. “I don’t suppose I’m a terrific scientist, but, however I now have some sense of the right way to grow to be one.”
