The year draws to a close

The semester is almost over, except for finals. I have taken a molecular biophysics class this semester, which introduced me to the simple physical models commonly used to model biopolymers. The subject of biophysics seems interesting, but the type of subject matter my professor is working on (flexibility of nucleic acids, energetics of RNA unfolding) does not seem to present a good opportunity for the engineering-type problems I am most interested in solving. I had a debate a few days ago with a friend over whether we know enough about biological components (enzymes, receptors, etc.) to design functional circuits from "first principles" as one would design an electronic logic circuit. It seems the jury is still out on this one, and will likely determine if I will eventually end up in biology.