Meet Eystein: Unraveling the Mysteries of Genetics

Lets meet Eystein! This episode was created for the purpose of the Haapaniemi lab website (https://haapaniemilab.org/). Kick back, relax, and let the waves of wisdom wash over you in this podcast episode – where learning meets laughter, and knowledge is served with a side of chill vibes.

Eystein`s dual love for meticulous research and the rush of snowboarding down a pristine slope comes to life. His unexpected journey to the realm of biology, driven by a desire to study far from his hometown, mirrors the unpredictable twists of genetics he now explores. Captivated by the potential of cell lines, CRISPR and barcoding for clonal tracking, Eystein offer us a picture of a future where we're not just passive observers but active architects of biology. 

All music clips were used from the song "Jukka Tukka" after agreement with amazing band and friends 2+1 Jam band.
This podcast episode was created under the technical and official support of University of Oslo, Norway.

Transcript

Eystein 0:26

My name is Eystein L , born and raised in Oslo . I've been in Oslo pretty much my whole life , except I took a bachelor's at UIT in Tromsø and then , after my bachelor's , I then started my master's at NMBU . Been there one year and now I'm here . Okay , so for my bachelor's project , quite simple . I took some marine bacteria and co-cultivated them with another background bacteria and I was trying to see if any of the marine bacteria produced any antimicrobial peptides or antibiotics . For my project here at Hopnimi Lab I'm working trying to figure out how to do clonal tracking with barcoding , which is basically you put a bunch of random sequences into , hopefully , stem cells at the end and then the idea is that each cell gets their own specific sequence and then you can kind of see how they develop and differentiate .

Eystein 1:39

I don't know really , it was a bit spontaneous decision by me to go to Tromsø and study biology . I wasn't quite certain what I was going to study after high school , so I took a year , worked at a kindergarten and then I knew I had to study something and then it became biology . I didn't want it to be Oslo , so I kind of studied biology in the city , furthest away from Oslo , I guess . Well , I looked at a lot of different labs before coming here . The only thing I knew I was very interested in human cell lines . I really wanted to work with human cells and also I've always been very interested in genetics . So obviously CRISPR has become an interest of mine and so the two kind of came very nicely together at this level .

Eystein 2:32

I thought that was a very interesting aspect . Something very interesting about CRISPR is it's new and the technology seems so new that you're able to engineer human genes . And also the fact that it actually comes from bacteria , that it's not directly human , made very interesting My favorite hobby . I like playing board games , a variety of board games . I also like working out , whenever I have the energy , and different sports where I'm not terrible at . Now there's not a lot of sports that I am not terrible at , but I'm decent at snowboarding . I've done that for a couple years , worked as a snowboard instructor , so if anyone in the lab wants to learn how to snowboard , they know who to come to .