Don’t Do a Boring Thing
Table of Contents
Sunday, January 12
161.4 lbs (Day 16, starting from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28)
I woke up around 10 a.m. today, which is pretty late, but I wanted to sleep in since it’s Sunday! After getting up, I ate breakfast and checked my weight. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that I’ve been losing weight recently, which isn’t ideal because I’m trying to bulk up and gain more muscle. I’m increasing my calorie intake to over 3,000 calories a day, but it can be challenging to stay consistent—especially when I have appointments or a busy schedule. I also try to go to the gym at least five times a week for muscle growth. Good nutrition and enough sleep form the perfect triangle for building muscle without putting on too much fat.
Anyway, after breakfast, I worked on an assignment for my reaction mechanisms class. It’s not a difficult course, but I realized I didn’t have a good writing tool for drawing reaction pathways on my computer(I left my iPad in Korea😐). So I bought a writing tablet that connects to my Mac. It’s really convenient because I can use a pen to draw, and I can set up shortcuts on the pen’s buttons to change colors or switch between the highlighter, eraser, and pen tools.
Later, I went to Mission Dolores Park(Dolores St &, 19th St, San Francisco, CA 94114) in San Francisco. It’s a lovely place. I grabbed an acai bowl from Palmetto Superfoods – Dolores Park (3809 18th St, San Francisco, CA 94114)—I wanted something sweet and tried the 2nd best one (Bay Blend (Signature Bowl); Bases – açai, pitaya, coconut beach, blue chia pudding. Toppings – almond honey granola, strawberries, blueberries, banana, goji berries, cacao nibs, almond butter, apple honey, or raw honey), which was pretty good! The park was so nice and not as crowded as I expected. I’m used to places in Korea, like the Han River area, where there are always people around, even on weekdays. At Boros Park, there was plenty of space to lie down and enjoy the sunlight. It felt very cozy, and I’m definitely planning to go back.
I finished my assignment at the park and then walked home. Maybe due to the warm sunlight and the cooler breeze, I started feeling sleepy, so I ended up taking a nap for about three or four hours💤💤. When I woke up, I ate dinner and continued working on my assignments. I also organized key points from last week’s rotation, a conference seminar I attended yesterday, and several classes from last week. Overall, it’s been a productive yet relaxing Sunday.
Monday, January 13
163.2 lbs (Day 17, starting from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28)
I woke up around 6 a.m. and headed straight to the gym for a push day, working on my chest, shoulders, triceps, and abs. It was a good start to the week for sure. Before going to class, I checked the progress of two reactions in the lab. One had been running over the weekend, and the other had finished on Friday evening. Because I didn’t have enough time to purify it on Friday, I stored the reaction mixture in the -20oC refrigerator over the weekend. Today I checked the LC-MS and the pattern doesn’t changed, so I quickly purified it, then went to a lab meeting.
The lab meeting was great. The professors and lab members discussed the 2025 plan, which includes reorganizing underused lab facilities, updating lab licensing, and assigning responsibilities for maintaining equipment and resources. We also talked about the lab meeting schedule. Typically, we meet Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon, and Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. When the professor doesn’t present, one of the lab members leads the meeting and shows their progress from the past six months or a year. I’m currently a rotating student, so I don’t have any facility maintenance responsibilities yet. Another topic was the next lab retreat. In the past, the lab would go to Lake Tahoe for skiing or snowboarding, but since the group has grown larger, the lab members have been considering more convenient options that take less travel time. We decided to pick a Saturday in February or March to take a ferry in San Francisco, go for a hike, and finish the day with a barbecue.
After the lab meeting, I headed to my RCR(Responsible Conduct of Research) class. As soon as that ended, I went to my Reaction Mechanisms class. I’ve already learned much of the material, so it wasn’t too difficult for me, but for those unfamiliar with organic synthesis, I thought the stereoselective hydrogenation concepts could be challenging. Later, I checked the LC-MS of the fractions I’d collected earlier, lyophilized the major peak that my mentor and I suspect is the main product, and set up my schedule for the next day.
Once I finished in the lab, I went home and ate dinner—or, at least, what you’d call dinner. Actually, earlier in the day, some classmates and I had gone to Subway on campus and bought a foot-long sandwich. I ate half of it then, and the other half, along with a protein bar, after work. I felt really sleepy and ended up taking a nap right away. I woke up around 10:30 p.m. and spent some time on my phone, watching a new episode of “Pinggyego,” which is my favorite Korean talk show on YouTube. Sometimes I feel a bit frustrated because it’s hard to stay focused after a long day at work. It seems normal to feel sleepy, but sometimes I worry I’m wasting my evening. I already know I need a better routine, but I haven’t been doing much to fix it. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to try to be more energetic and manage my time better.
Tuesday, January 14
161.6 lbs (Day 18, starting from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28)
Last night, I went to bed around 2 or 3 a.m., so I couldn’t make it to the gym this morning(I know it is an excuse🛌). I headed straight to the lab. There, I ran another reaction and checked the NMR data for two samples. One sample turned out fine, but I had mistakenly dissolved the other in methanol instead of DMSO, which meant I couldn’t observe the proton signal. I plan to redo the NMR using DMSO, because protons on hydroxyl or amine groups can be exchangeable in methanol, causing the signals to disappear.
In the evening, one of my former lab (first rotation) Korean seniors invited me to have dinner with his friends, including someone who is a vice president at Cyrus Therapeutics in South Korea. We ate at SUNGHO(250 Hyde St, San Francisco, CA 94102), a Korean restaurant, and the food was excellent—gukbap, pajeon, and bossam!. I hadn’t had those dishes in about four or five months, so it was a real treat. Over dinner, we talked a lot about the pharmaceutical industry, therapeutic drug development, and how small molecules can be transformed into effective treatments.
The conversation inspired me to pursue my PhD as soon as possible and become a more influential person in the field—someone with deep insight and knowledge who can guide others. After dinner, I headed home, practically passed out from exhaustion, and then woke up around midnight. I spent a bit of time thinking about my future thesis project, which I hope will focus on tackling “undruggable” proteins. I’d like to develop a technology that doesn’t require a specific ligand to degrade, inhibit, or modulate a protein’s function. It’s definitely challenging, but I believe it’s worth the effort.
Wednesday, January 15
163.8 lbs (Day 19, starting from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28)
I woke up around 6 a.m. and headed out to the gym. Today’s workout focused on the lower body, back, and biceps. I also wrapped up with an abdominal workout. I normally (try😜) go to the gym 5~6 times a week, but I missed a day recently, so I combined lower-body and back exercises into one session to make up for it. After the gym, I ate my usual breakfast (overnight oats with about 60 grams of rolled oats, 60 grams of unsweetened almond milk, one scoop of whey protein concentrate (WPC), and around 100 grams of fat-free yogurt). I also have two slices of bread with either one tablespoon of peanut butter or basil pesto.
Later, I went to the lab. It was my first time conducting a biology experiment using PCR and site-directed mutagenesis. My mentor and I aimed to change one amino acid in a specific binding site of eIF4E. We designed a primer that introduces the mutation, used PCR to generate linear DNA, and then planned to use a KLD (Kinase-Ligase-DpnI) reaction to make the desired plasmid. PCR is such a powerful method, and I found it surprisingly straightforward to run. The one thing we had to optimize was an annealing tempeartures because we manually designed our primer. If we got a primer design from a vendor (NEB), then it is ok to just follow protocol. After setting up the experiment, I checked another reaction I’d left overnight, hoping to see crystals or solids—unfortunately, I didn’t see any. So, I decided to evaporate the solvent (mainly dioxane and some ether) and will check the sample by NMR tomorrow.
While waiting for the PCR results, I grabbed lunch at the Subway on the UCSF campus. I ordered a BLT (possibly a version with extra meats like pepperoni), and I added pepper and olive oil(my favorite). It was a good combination of salty and savory flavors. In Korea, I often went to Subway, even when I was doing an extreme diet for my body profile(I don’t think it is a word from the U.S. haha). There are so many health variations at Subway, so in my opinion, getting sick of it is practically impossible. But until last week, I hadn’t been to the Subway in UCSF because I just ate the food from home, but this semester’s class schedule somewhat made me try that because of lack of time to go home to grab lunch 😢
After a quick lunch, we prepared an agarose gel to confirm our PCR worked correctly and did a KLD reaction. I had a reaction mech class, and once the class finished, I checked DNA gel with samples from PCR and from the KLD reaction. We clearly saw our PCR products have a similar base pair length as the desired one. On top of that the circularized product(after KLD) didn’t show a clear band on the gel—exactly as expected, because circular DNA migrates differently than linear DNA. For the final step of the day, we took DH5-alpha bacteria specialized for cloning and mixed them with the KLD product. We plated this mixture on carbenicillin-containing agar plates to select only those bacteria that had taken up the plasmid. We incubated the plates at 37°C overnight.
After finishing the lab, I didn’t want to go home right away because I tend to get sleepy and nap😴. Instead, I stayed in the office and worked on a blog post I’d been postponing. Writing in English can be overwhelming for me, so it took a couple of hours!!!, but I got it done(my first 100% blog post in English🙌). Then I headed home, had dinner, and prepared my overnight oats for the next day.
Thursday, January 16
164.2 lbs (Day 20, starting from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28)
I checked the NMR of the reduction product, but it was not the desired compound. The mentor and I decided to just follow the previously reported method from supporting information (NH3, Ni-assisted reduction). I also checked all other NMRs and set up future plans. Iodoacetamide-type warheads were not pure, and considering their universal reactivity toward cysteine, we ended up holding the synthesis of this compound. For the sulfonyl fluoride type warhead, we identified the substitution of fluorine into hydroxyl. We suspected that because we purified it with reversed-phase C18 chromatography (ACN, H2O, TFA 0.1%), the sulfonyl fluoride was hydrolyzed. So we decided to synthesize it again using solvent as DCM or THF, which can be readily removed by a rotary evaporator in order to use normal-phase chromatography. Also I talked with the lab’s Administrative Coordinator about setting up essentials(NMR account, get access to a group shared data cloud, etc.).
This afternoon, I attended a seminar titled “Any Target, Every Time: How Proximity-Based Therapeutics Has Redefined Druggability” given by a lead scientist from Amgen. Almost all the professors in CCB were present, and it was incredibly interesting. It made me realize that this is the kind of research I want to pursue, exploring bifunctional molecules (and potentially molecular glues someday if a reliable discovery method is developed). I know this is a broad field with many participants heavily focusing on it, but there are also endless possibilities to combine multiple functions—it feels almost infinite! I believe this is an excellent research area that I could dedicate myself to for the long term.
After work, I met my Korean friend, who is a research assistant at UCSF. She recently received a negative result on their graduate school application. I wanted to help her feel better, but as you know, it’s not easy. I’ve experienced similar situations with my friends before, and I’ve learned one big golden rule: just listen. Back in my early 20s, I used to try giving advice or sharing my opinions (I was quite a “T person”). To be honest, I’m still somewhat the same, but I’ve changed a lot through different relationships and experiences. We ended up having some delicious Vietnamese food together and chatting. I’m sure the next application will be much better than this one. I hope everything works out for her👍
Friday, January 17
164.2 lbs (Day 21, starting from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28)
Today, finally, I went to a local Social Security office to apply for SSN, not ITIN. Because I already got rejected for the second ITIN application, my Fulbright advisor recommended that I apply for an SSN using a work authorization letter. She discussed my situation promptly with the IIE visa team, enabling the issuance of the letter just 2 days after we talked at a Zoom meeting. Yesterday I made appointment via SSN online (10:20 am today). I took my passport, DS-2019, most recent I-94, and a work authorization letter from IIE. When I arrived at the office, I was shocked that almost 40~50 people were waiting their turn. I told an officer that I made a reservation prior to my visit, and he said that anyway, I needed to get a number ticket from the Kiosk and wait. I gotta go to the lab until 11:30 am, but even though I waited over 30 minutes, only two people took their turn, and my number was far from the current one. I was so anxious that I didn’t know exatly how much time I should wait. Very fortunately, another 5 minutes later, I got an email that I got my turn but a different window (A-, vs D- from the ticket). I successfully submitted and replied to some questions from an officer and got application verification. It said it would take ~2 weeks for an SSN to be issued unless there is a problem. I hope desperately🥹 I get my tax ID for this time.
At the lab, I learned about mini-prep(plasmid purification) from the four small cultures we let overnight and sent a small amount of each to be sequenced. This step is critical to know if our bacteria get the plasmid that we want exactly. After a quick one-and-a-half-hour biology experiment, I took a reaction mech class as always, then took another class: RCR(Responsible Conduct of Research) discussion time. You might expect the content of the class from the name haha…This time, the discussion topic was about fraud in the research. For the sake of their success, particularly for being accepted by a journal, researchers are tempted to commit fraud regarding scientific data. We disucssed how we prevent it from happening. The class was led by the professor in whose lab I did my first rotation. Right after the class ended, he suddenly approached me and said, “Do you have time to chat?” My cohort and I were shocked that he usually is so busy that no one in my cohort expected such an event, including me. Last time, he got a severe upper respiratory syndrome, which made our appointment postponed, but it fizzled out😅 So I didn’t expect him to remember our previous appointment.
Anyway, thanks to the professor, we chatted for about 50 minutes in the coffee shop near the campus. He was amazing. He is almost 70 years old but maintains clarity(perhaps better than me😄) about his thoughts. I prepared some questions last time regarding his science journey from PhD to Dupont to professor and so-called ‘big guy.’ The chat was great and left me a lot of takeaways. Among these, I want to share with you guys the professor’s answer to the question, “What do you think is the most important thing for a graduate student who just kicked off his research journey?”. That was: “Don’t do a boring thing,” but he also added that diligence, self-motivation(independence), have your hobby. I have been worried so much about the research field, but now I, at some point, realized that prioritizing my curiosity (questions-driven) is the way to go, regardless of the research topic.
After the delightful talk, I ran a reaction (reduction of nitro) with the same method as in the supporting information for overnight and got one sample lyophilized. For (endless…) meal prep, I went to Costco with my friend(Thank you for driving🙏). Bringing a Costco card from Korea has definitely been a great choice; thanks, Mom! As always I bought some protein-heavy ingredients. This time I bought a ready-to-eat chioppino. I highly recommend it if you like seafood and tomato-based soup! it goes well with pasta and baguette! Furthermore, I decided to try basmati rice because the current one is somewhat sticky, and I feel it is difficult to eat a large amount (def. good for weight loss purposes), so I changed to this one, which has less sticky characteristics, Fluffy and Soft texture. I hope this rice helps me gain weight easily💪
Saturday, January 18
162.4 lbs (Day 22, starting from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28)
Although today was the weekend, I went to the lab to get some work done 🫠 I worked up the reduction reaction and synthesized corresponding amine salt using HCl in 1,4-dioxane. I also synthesized the (R)-form of the acrylamide using the same method as for the (S)-form, and I lyophilized both. Additionally, I learned the general process of tissue culture (my mentor said it’s the same as cell culture…?). I’ve heard cell culture is notorious for making researchers work on weekends, haha. However, I think it is a great opportunity to be familiar with biology while still being able to do chemistry experiments. I’m enjoying this environment—people here are so nice and always willing to answer any science-related questions.
After I finished the lab, I headed to the gym for a full-body workout. I was so tired afterward that I couldn’t help but take a nap… (It feels like I’ve been napping every day this week haha). After dinner, I started working on my reaction mechanisms assignment. We were given three assignments yesterday, so it was tough to complete everything in one day. I managed to finish one before going to bed.
Starting next week, I’m going to track how many times I go to the gym each week, along with my current weight. I know it’s just an excuse, but I’ve been trying to adjust quickly to the new rotation, which made it hard to hit the gym every day. I’ll aim for 5–6 sessions per week from now on. I’ve noticed that I tend to skip meals or lose my appetite when I miss gym sessions. So, for muscle growth, my top priority should be going to the gym regularly. To achieve this, I need to sleep early (before 11:00 PM). I’m also planning to avoid napping, even if I finish work early in the evening (which is a challenge for me 🫤).
