Life-Changing Science: The BioBuilder Podcast · BioBuilder Educational Foundation

Finding Synthetic Biology: Nicolas Rojas Taborda Transformative Journey

·22 min

The episode opens with Nico looking back on how unexpected his science path was. For most of his life, he says, science was not really his thing. He saw himself more in law or English and spent a lot of time in the humanities. That started to shift in high school. By sophomore year, he was taking mostly humanities classes, then he found himself getting more interested in math. From there, he began thinking about the work science can do in the world, and that idea kept pulling him forward. BioBuilder entered the picture through the Apprenticeship Challenge in 2023. Since then, Nico has entered Boston University, and he is now leading a high school iGEM team. The episode keeps circling back to how that BioBuilder experience changed the shape of everything that followed. He talks about the project as something built through collaboration from the start. The best part, for him, was the back and forth, talking through ideas, taking feedback seriously, and watching the team change over time. In the end, that process mattered more than any single result. He also describes how new the whole thing felt at first. It was the first time he had been given such a large, open ended task in class, and it came with a heavy dose of research. Scientific papers felt like an alien language at the beginning. He had to look up almost every word. Bit by bit, that changed. He started understanding more of what he was reading, and he takes real pride in that progress. The host notes that plenty of scientists go through the same stretch of confusion before things start to make sense. The conversation closes with a more hands on note. Nico points to running gels as his favorite technique. He likes the small tips and tricks that come with practice, and he talks about learning how to pour a gel and handle the columns well. The episode ties those details together as the kind of basics that build real scientific confidence.

As heard by us

A grounded student story about finding confidence in synthetic biology.

Nicholas Rojas de Borda, a Revere High School senior, comes across as someone who has shifted from a humanities focus toward science through BioBuilder.

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Why you'd press play

Hear a Revere High School senior go from humanities-first uncertainty to BioBuilder, iGEM, and a more scientific way of thinking.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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