UCSD@50 Special Section in the San Diego Union Tribune

On Sunday Nov 14, the Union Tribune ran a special section outlining some of the history and highlights of UC San Diego's first 50 years.

Check out the coverage online: http://www.signonsandiego.com/ucsd-50/

Below is a screen shot of one of the pages. It includes future looking quotes from UC San Diego Bioengineering professor Gert Cauwenberghs and NanoEngineering professor Joseph Wang.

The special section includes information on how structural engineers from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering played an important role in retrofitting bridges to prepare them for earthquakes.

(That same page also has a great image of Jacobs School undergrads floating in near-zero gravity in order to made better space toilets.)

Founders' Day Photo Booth: Your Vision of the Next 50 Years

More than 150 people drew their visions of the next 50 years at a photo booth at a celebration of the University of California, San Diego’s first 50 years.

The official photo booth “directions” challenged people to envision the future of information technology and communications, health and medicine, and solutions for sustainability. Brain-to-brain and brain-to-human communications systems caught people’s imaginations, as did a wide range of sustainability solutions, and stem cell and genome-based medicines. Lots of students took on the task of envisioning the UC San Diego of the future.

A few of the 300+ photo booth images on the Jacobs School flickr site are linked below.

UC San Diego Founders’ Day photo booth directions. Side 1.  Side 2.

Conversation via telepathy:

“I have cancer. But my body will heal itself”

“I can perform photosynthesis.”

All will communicate using American Sign Language. How cool would that be?? Bilingual!!

It will all be telepathy with an option of “out of office” message from your head.

Stable climate!

Way less traffic since we can fly.

Peace

UC San Diego cloud campus

UC San Diego stepping out of the box

Flying Geisel

Global TIES flying school bus

UC San Diego Bioengineering Professor Shyni Varghese: "We need to know what is happening in nature before we can successfully mimic it"

UC San Diego Professor Shyni Varghese’s bioengineering research projects span the continuum from basic research to translational work aimed at bridging the bench-to-bed divide. The lab, however, is united by one overarching goal: to treat dysfunctional tissues or organs using stem cells and healthy tissues derived from stem cells.

“I strongly believe that if we don’t fundamentally understand the science, then the translational work cannot happen. We need to know what is happening in nature before we can successfully mimic it,” said Varghese.

Read about a recent project from the Varghese lab that was led by undergraduate bioengineering students from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

Undergrad Bioengineers Advance Stem Cell Science at UC San Diego

Han Lim (right)and bioengineering professor Shyni Varghese (left) in 2008.  Lim is one of the bioengineering undergraduates who created an artificial environment for stem cells that simultaneously provides the chemical, mechanical and electrical cues necessary for stem cell growth and differentiation.

 

 

Check out the stem cell research performed by undergraduate bioengineers at UC San Diego.

The translucent materials bridging the dishes in the photo are “agarose salt bridges” -- part of the electrochemical cell used to subject hydrogels to an electric field. Learn more.

Engineering Bear Gets a Scarf

The rock sculpture of the bear in the engineering courtyard got a hand-knitted scarf this morning, thanks to a dedicated and talented group of UC San Diego friends and supporters.

I don't have all the details of how this came about, but the photos speak for themselves. This is part of UC San Diego's 50th birthday party.  Check out more photos on UCSD Bear's Facebook page:

The official name of the bear is "Bear."  Read more about this Tim Hawkinson sculpture on the Stuart Collection website.

For Students Only: Free Thanksgiving Weekend Shuttle from UC San Diego to San Airport

UC San Diego FREE holiday shuttle for students
http://yamhill.ucsd.edu/tps/shuttles/

More holiday shuttle info:
http://yamhill.ucsd.edu/tps/shuttles/Information.aspx

Scenes from a NanoEngineering Lab: (Part 3)

Here is the third post on chemical engineering major Maria Zimmerman, who is an undergraduate student researcher in a nanomachine-focused lab run by NanoEngineering professor Joseph Wang.

In a previous post, Maria said that she got her foot in the Wang lab door through a fellowship, and stayed because she loved it. It was a fellowship for the UC San Diego California Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP) in Science, Engineering and Mathematics program.

In the first post and second post, Maria in photographed in the lab and gives a bit of advice to undergrads thinking about trying their (gloved) hands at research:

Maria said: "Ask for responsibility. The work only gets interesting if they trust you want to do it. You are just wasting your time if you go in to clean pipette tips."

But what does Maria actually do in the lab?

"I work in the nanomotors section of Dr Wang's research lab. My recent work has been on nanomotor controlled in vitro drug delivery. We are able to manually control the nanomotors ability to pick up, transport, and drop off cancer drug carrying microparticles. We are striving towards a realistic model for in vivo applications," said Maria Zimmerman.