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Lifechips Seminar Series
Achievement/Results
NSF funded IGERT-Lifechips program at the University of California, Irvine continues to organize the monthly seminars hosted by the Lifechips fellows. Each month, a Lifechips fellow is assigned to invite a faculty member or a prominent researcher who will present the current research or findings in the themes of Lifechips. We are also encouraging students to invite speakers from different fields but still related to science and technology for the seminars. This way, Lifechips fellows will learn more about the multidiscipline research areas. The seminars are broadly advertised and promoted with flyer posting and announcement was sent to many departments. The seminar series is still in progress but some seminars include presentations from outstanding faculty members at UC-Irvine.
The speakers include: Professor Young Jik Kwon from the Departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine with a presentation about Nanoparticles for efficient, versatile, controlled, and targeted gene therapy and imaging and this seminar was hosted by Lifechips fellow Mathew Coblyn; Professor Elliot Hui from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC-Irvine with a presentation about Probing cell-cell interactions with microfabricated tools and this seminar was hosted by Lifechips fellow Vickie Hsuan; Professor Bruce Blumberg from the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology at UC-Irvine with a presentation about Organotins are potent inducers of vertebrate adipogenesis – is the environment making us fat? and this seminar was hosted by Lifechips fellow Amada Janesick; Dr. Philip L. Felgner from the Department of Medicine: Division of Infectious Diseases at UC-Irvine with a presentation about Genome-wide protein microarrays for vaccine and serodiagnostic antigen discovery and this seminar was hosted by Lifechips fellow Crystal Rapier.
The seminar series is a successful and major component to the Lifechips program because it not only brings the Lifechips fellows together, it also reaches out the science community. At the end of each seminar, many questions are raised and that generates a great discussions. Lifechips fellows show great interests in the speakers’ research because they would come up and talk to the speakers if they could pay a visit or have a tour to learn more about certain tools or equipments used to carry out the experiments. In the past, collaboration between Lifechips fellow and a speaker was made possible; therefore, we are hopeful that the seminar series continues to be the platform that provides opportunities for people working together.
Address Goals
The Lifechips seminar series addresses the program’s goal of presenting the works of biologists, physicians, and engineers. Lifechips program aims to break through the conventional paradigms that treat biology and engineering as separate entities and the goal is to join them to show the interdisciplinary efforts that could benefit both fields. With this said, through the presentations, students gain knowledge and resources that will help with their innovation and motivation in their own research.
