Hello new readers, my name is Joshua Giblin. I am a recent undergraduate and received a BS in biology from Utica university. This first blog post will consist of a short intro about me and my interests in science. Along with a brief introduction, I will include information regarding prior education and the goals of Opti-Biologics. 

It was during my undergraduate program that I realized my passion lies in academia. The undergraduate experience taught me how to perform at a professional level and at a level beyond what was expected. Unfortunately, my passion for academic excellence was not always present. My high school years were spent playing video games competitively and making money from online competitions. This passion carried well into my senior year of high school when my parents persuaded me to attend a local college. As a result, my first two years at college were filled with a nonexistent classroom presence and procrastination syndrome. This was even more severe than when I was in high school, which I might add is slightly impressive. However, the demands of my academic journey were taking their toll on my ability to juggle two worlds at once. After weeks of journaling, questioning, and discovery,  I forced myself to change for the better, and my priorities shifted. For the first time in my life, I began to put my education first. I started by excelling in organic chemistry and this train of excellence started to have a positive impact on all my other classes as well. This change in momentum swept me by my feet and by the beginning of my junior year, I decided that settling for mediocrity would be unacceptable. With true gratitude, the last two years have been nothing short of a blessing. I earned an average GPA of 3.985 with 19 or more credits a semester, presented a poster at an experimental biology conference, and spent countless hours learning to read scientific literature in my spare time. I also found that the selfish version of myself withered away and with a new academic standing came a grateful and hopeful version. With a certain knowledge of the medical field, specifically medical school, and my lack of lab experience, my hopes were to gain as much research experience before applying for graduate school. Currently, I am a researcher/research technician in USC's Chung lab, where I hope to learn more experimental procedures and apply to MD-PhD programs in the near future.

Obtaining either degree would truly be an honor, however, my goal is to apply my research/experimental experience in the world of medicine. 

In this blog, I hope to illustrate the journey that academics go through when analyzing literature and using it to write thoughtful papers. It is my objective as a scientific writer to write a comprehensive review article every four months on a topic of my choice. Review papers of this type will be more scientific in nature, thus requiring a modest amount of background knowledge on the subject for comprehension.

To allow the reader to become part of my scientific writing journey, I will provide a mission statement each week (9 weeks). This mission statement will include the respective period's topic and a list of references. If the reader isn't familiar with the topic, the references list will be an invaluable resource. Writing a comprehensive review paper requires a tremendous amount of scientific paper analysis so to allow my readers to follow the direction of the comprehensive review paper, I will be publishing a weekly article summary. This weekly summary will briefly summarize, critique, and critically engage with a journal article of choice. 

Outside of the comprehensive review paper and weekly article summary, I will be posting an informal update on my research endeavors at the USC lab. This update will include a variety of procedures I have learned and performed as well as the general direction of my project. 

I desire to create a strong unified community in which the fundamentals of biology can be explored and expanded upon. The site will serve as a platform for scientific appreciation, and together we can create an atmosphere that fosters critical thinking.