with Dr. Natalie Kuldell
Mentorship in science often gets built into formal training programs, but life-changing STEM opportunities can start with something much simpler and more direct, namely a scientist taking a young student seriously.
In this special podcast to celebrate BioBuilder’s 15th anniversary as a nonprofit, we sit down with Dr. Natalie Kuldell and her childhood mentor, Dr. Alan Peterkofsky, and retrace the moment Natalie walked into an NIH lab at 15 and asked to learn science. What follows is not a highlight reel of credentials, but a grounded look at how real scientific confidence is built: being welcomed, being taught, being trusted, and being treated like you belong.
Alan takes us back to the early days of modern biology, when molecular biology was still a new field and the genetic code was being cracked in Marshall Nirenberg’s orbit. We talk about the freedom researchers once had to chase bold questions, how Alan shifted from enzyme mechanisms into RNA research, and why curiosity-driven science so often leads to breakthroughs nobody can predict. If you care about the history of genetics, NIH research culture, and how discovery actually happens, this conversation is a vivid time capsule.
We also wrestle with a frustrating reality in STEM education today: a motivated teenager cannot simply knock on a lab door the way Natalie did. That gap is exactly why we keep building BioBuilder to bring authentic biotechnology learning into classrooms, so access is not reserved for the lucky few. If a mentor ever changed your trajectory, or if you want to be that person for someone else, you’ll hear yourself in this story. Subscribe, share this with a teacher or scientist, and leave a review telling us: who was the first person to say yes to you?
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