Highlight
2nd International Symposium on Lifechips, 2009
Lifechips symposium speaker
Achievement/Results
IGERT- Lifechips program organized and hosted the 2nd International Symposium on Lifechips, 2009. The event took place at the University of California, Irvine in Southern California. This one and a half day event was dedicated to promote the IGERT-Lifechips program at UCI for its union of technology arts and life sciences through research at the micro and nanoscales. The symposium drew an interdisciplinary and international crowd of more than 125 people with different backgrounds in life sciences, medicine, physical sciences, and engineering. Many of the international attendees are from Japan and Korea. This event helped to initiate and stimulate discussion, interest, and collaboration among the researchers within the States and international researchers. The event was packed of interesting and educational activities featuring 30 speakers, a poster session, a banquet (on top of breakfast, lunch, and refreshments in between), keynote speakers for lunch and banquet, and social networking. In more details, the 30 speakers consist of award-winning and outstanding researchers, faculty, and graduate students. Besides the speakers from within the United States like UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC Los Angeles, University of Florida, Northeastern University, MIT, etc., there were also speakers from Japan and Korea universities such as Toyohashi University of Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Hanyang University, and Korea University.
Moreover, the speakers were split in three sessions with three different themes consisting of Lifechips Cellular Systems, Lifechips for Organ Systems, and Lifechips for Molecular Systems. We had Lifechips fellows Amy Van Deusen, Mark Merlo, and Silvia Cermelli-Ferrante served as moderators for the sessions. Their jobs were to ensure the sessions go smoothly such as making sure the speakers ended within the time limit and generating questions from the audience. Many of the presenters were Lifechips faculty members such as Dr. Abe Lee from Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Eva Lee from Developmental and Cell Biology and of Biological Chemistry, and Dr. Phil Collins from Physics. Some of the presentation topics were Breast cancer stem cells and chemoresistance, A penetrating auditory-nerve electrode array for hearing replacement, and Virus Electrodes for Early Warning Disease Detectors. The integrated and interdisciplinary research shown in the presentations was fascinating to the audience since there were many questions after each presentation, which made the whole event even more exciting and interesting. The speakers as well as the general attendees also had an option to sign up for posting their posters during the poster-session. This was a great time where all attendees got to converse, discuss, and exchange knowledge and ideas.
Another key factor in making the Lifechips symposium a successful event that attracted a diverse group of attendees was our keynote speakers. We were honored to have two outstanding and well-known keynote speakers: Kary Mullis and Stanton Rowe. The first keynote speaker during the luncheon was Kary Mullis – the winner of 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his invention of PCR, and he is an outspoken advocate of science. His presentation was about changing paradigms in science. The second keynote speaker during the dinner banquet was Stanton Row – a Corporate Vice President, Advanced Technology & Chief Scientific Officer from Edwards Lifesciences Corporation. He gave a passionate presentation about innovation to success. He talked about the journey and teamwork that led to many accomplishments. Both speakers delivered great messages that sure caught the audience’s attention.
Overall, the symposium was a big success to the IGERT-Lifechips program for being able to promote and bring awareness to Lifechips. We got great comments from the attendees and people were fascinating with the presentations and the interdisciplinary research directions that they got from the presentations.
Address Goals
The 2nd International Symposium on Lifechips 09 addresses the learning as the primary goal and discovery as a secondary goal in a sense that it provided a platform for the researchers from different backgrounds to come and share their work. Everyone left the symposium with great information and knowledge gaining from the presentations and communication with one another. As for the international speakers/guests, it was a great opportunity for them to attend the symposium because here they were able to learn more about many of our nation?s outstanding researchers and their research on Lifechips.
