Introduction

My dear Reader,

Greetings, I am Trevor Fox. I am a programmer and a researching scientist with many interests in many things. As of writing this, I am completing my B.Sc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology - Medical Molecular Biology. I am also rounding out an 8-month period of research, known as a directed study in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy-based metabolomics. I will write another post about my research when the time comes.

Despite being a busy university student, I love finding the time to write code. I am not the best at it, I admit. However, I believe the power to write a solution for whatever you want—whether needed or unneeded—is of extreme importance. This is true both in my field of study, and generally in today’s world.

My Interests

First and foremost is Analytical Chemistry, the science of measuring the chemical properties of things. Metabolomics, the science of identifying and quantitating every organic molecule in a biological system, is a subset of Analytical Chemistry which I specialize in.

The bio part in biochemistry comes into play with my next interest—Synthetic Biology. Synthetic Biology aims to treat biology like engineering. Living things have evolved to perform specific tasks. Moreover, some species have done so better than others! Why not take the parts and tools (proteins and enzymes) which do these tasks and standardize them. This way, we can string them together to make complex devices to solve real problems! For example, this iGEM team created a system to make biodegradable, but strong fishing nets using nothing but biological parts!

Last, but certainly not least, is Programming and Web Design. Nothing parallels the ability to develop solutions to life’s problems at a moment’s notice! Not to mention, the perks of knowing what your computer is doing! Recently, I have become involved in the Astro community, making contributions to their documentation and other projects. This has been a thrill so far, and I hope to become a maintainer one day! Though, I still have far to go.

Now, what do I do with this information?
— You, probably

Well, if you think any of these topics are interesting, or you want to know how any of them relate, I encourage you to keep an eye on my blog! Here is a checklist of things I want to write about next:

• Using Discord™️ in an academic or professional setting
• Why do I contribute to Astro?
• What is Synthetic Biology?
• What is NMR Metabolomics?
• Programming is a soft skill for non-computer-science jobs
• How Synthetic Biology benefits from programming paradigms
• My journey in learning the code-base for Astro language-tools and prettier-plugin-astro

And plenty more to come!

Conclusion

Thank you for taking the time to read about me. You definitely didn’t have to! Have a wonderful day :)

Kind regards,

Trevor Fox