Tuesday, October 21, 2008


October 24, 2008
-- Tao Yu

Location: Homewood Clark 110

Title: An introduction to Synthetic Biology and the iGEM competition

Abstract: Synthetic biology, a new discipline to "make biology easier to be engineered", is an emerging branch of biology in recent years. Though quite some researchers are participating the research in such a field, synthetic biology is still far from familiar to a broad range of investigators in biology, medicine and engineering scopes. iGEM, which is short for the international Genetically Engineered Machines competition, is an annual undergrad competition aiming to recruit more participants in the community of synthetic biology. Here, I would like to introduce you to some key concepts and typical research in synthetic biology, and share with you the great fun I had in the iGEM competition last year.




Wednesday, October 8, 2008


October 10, 2008
-- Suneil Hosmane

Location: Med Campus Talbot Library (Traylor 709)

Title: TBA

Abstract: Microfluidics has the potential to uncover mechanisms behind many neurodegenerative diseases by enabling engineers and scientists to recreate the diseased cellular microenvironment. By doing so, a repeatable, efficient, and quantitative approach can be taken to understand the neurobiology of disease in vitro. To this extent, we have developed a novel device platform that merges conventional macro-sized features with microfluidic technology to yield a hybrid device compatible with standard biological protocols. This device allows for numerous experimental modalities through the replication of a single master design using conventional polymethyldisiloxane (PDMS) soft lithography.


Laboratory: Biomedical Instrumentation and Neuroengineering Laboratory
http://www.jhu.edu/nthakor/