cluster 7: bioengineering/mechanical...

10

CLUSTER 7: BIOENGINEERING/MECHANICAL ENGINEERING: THE AMAZING RED BLOOD CELL

It has been an amazing first week here at COSMOS!!! On open-ing night students met their RA's, teacher fellows, professors, clus-ter students and said good-bye to their parents for next month as they began their COSMOS Journey. After a fun evening of team building and settling into their dorms students woke up early Mon-day morning to attend for their first day of classes. All students attended a lab safety training to prepare and familiarize them-selves with all the protocols and procedures for safe laboratory conduct. In the afternoon, Cluster 7 (The Amazing Red Blood Cells) learned about red blood cell transport, lineage and development, structure and function from Dr. Vera who himself became interest-ed in hemorrhagic shock as an EMT in Tijuana prior to pursuing Medicine.

In our first lab, students got hands-on with using micropipettes to transfer small volumes of liquids with accuracy and preci-sion. On Tuesday, students were treated to a thrilling Discovery Lecture on the Optics behind building Cloaking Devices and Invisi-bility Cloaks by Boubacar Kante. Dr. Kante developed the first non-magnetic cloaking device by organizing meta-materials in small arrays. In class we explored some of the research groups in the Biomedical Engineering Department here at UCSD and discussed possible ethical dilemmas the each research group might face. Wednesday students worked in the lab most of the day and had a chance to create "blood smear" slides and analyze the mor-phology and density of red blood cells under the microscope. Fri-day we will stain these cells to differentiate leukocytes (white blood cells) and erythrocytes (red blood cells).

Guest speaker Sanjeev Bhavani, a cardiologist at Scripps Transla-tional Medicine gave an engaging talk entitled "Digital Health, The Future Today." He brought several devices including a cell phone case that could read EKGs, a wired shirt with sensors that could measure heart and respiration rate and even a digital pill that emits an electrical charge when it is digested so doctors know if patients have taken their medication remotely. Students discussed how to develop apps to help patients suffering from a variety of ailments utilizing this technology. Dr Bhavani is interested in TELE-Medicine and delivering healthcare to individuals in rural ares that do not have access to medicine. He started a health clinic in Kam-pala, Uganda where 1 hospital with 100 beds serves nearly 2 mil-lion individuals. He discussed the infrastructure challenges for treatment and outreach.

In class today we are currently working on our Ethics essays related to Science and Society. Students have chosen a variety of topics in from the increasing the prevalence of nanotechnology in our daily lives, designer babies, the need for TELE-Medecine in developing nations, artificial blood, gene editing and the need for privacy protection in the Healthcare System. All in all an action packed in Cluster 7!!

10


Yet another action packed week for Cluster 7!!! In lab Friday, students tested the effects of osmolarity on the morphology of red blood cells followed by a fun filled COSMOS Olympics in the evening. Over the weekend, the stu-dents were able to take a well-deserved break from the academic rigors of the week, such as their ethics essays. Saturday, the students visited the world fa-mous San Diego Zoo, exploring the wonders of animals, including the zoo’s fa-mous giant pandas. On Sunday afternoon,we took a trip to the La Jolla beach, where we swam in the ocean, explored the shoreline, caught Pokemon, and just relaxed outside. After an amazing weekend of fun, the students returned refreshed and ready to dive back into the wonderful study of the amazing red blood cell. Monday morning we watched a fascinating TED Talk by Paul Root Wolpe on the Ethical boundaries of Biomedical Engineering. Engaging conversations were had on the ethical treatment of animals in experimental settings. Dr Vera also elaborated on the structural make-up of RBC membranes and techniques used to measure biomechanical stress in the surface of RBCs. On Monday, students also engaged in labs involving the separation and centrifugation of red blood cell pro-teins. Techniques such as staining and gel electrophoresis were used to separate and examine the composition of red these membrane proteins. The Discovery Lecture on Tuesday was by the Dean of Biological Sciences Bill McGinnis who spoke about the Developmental Biology and Evolution. In this mind blowing talk, Dr McGinnis discussed HOX genes and the critical role that they have played not only in development of organisms body plans but also in the evolu-tion and diversification of Kingdom Animalia over the past 600 million years. These modular genes determine where your arms, legs, eyes and hands will be placed on your body and even how many there will be….just crazy!! During our Spirometry lab, we measured our pulse and oxygen levels with pulse oximeters. These functional objects are about the size of a key and fit snug on your fingers, and they work by flashing lights through tissues to determine the satu-ration of saturation and heartbeat. We watched our heart rates change from 70 bpm to 140 bpm within five minutes of playing Jenga, literally…. OUR ADRENAL GLANDS WENT CRAZYYYY!! Eventually, staring at numbers became boring, and we decided to challenge ourselves by seeing how we can physically (and maybe mental-ly) manipulate the saturation of oxygen in our bodies and our heart rates. While waiting for our samples to develop, students completed their Ethics papers and pre-pared for our Thursday excursion to the J. Craig Venter Institute. We will let you all know about our experiences in next week's newsletter!!!

12


Another eventful week for Cluster 7!! Labs, field-trips, essays and boba-tea. Over the past week, we finished our ethics essays, began learning about Engineering and material science and visited 2 of the most innovative institutions in the world for Bioengineering. Over the weekend many students recon-nected with family to tell them about all the wonderful experi-ences they have been having at COSMOS. This week our focus has been tying to understand Tensesgrity! What’s that? JCVI—On Thursday, we had an opportunity to visit the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). Venter is credited with sequencing the entire human genome in 2000 using a method called “shot-gun sequencing.” JCVI is a world class research institution, not only mapping the diversity of the human genome but attempting to sequence the DNA of all marine microbes, re-verse engineering the Minimal Cell (the first artificial life form), characterizing the genomes of unknown organisms, the human microbiome and even reverse engineering bacteria to recli-mate sewage to solve sanitation issues and provide clean wa-ter around the world. After a long walk across campus…students learned about novel methods (RNAseq) for sequenc-ing the genomes of microbes and had an opportunity to visit labs talk to scientists. Ghost Membranes and RBC Protein Identification—On Friday, we conducted our last wet-lab before we move into the engi-neering phase of our projects. Students learned about how to identify proteins extracted from RBC membranes using anti-bodies in a technique called SDS Page (immunoblotting)…more commonly called Western blotting. Students also did a peer critique of lab notebooks and learned a bit about keeping good records and data analysis for labs. Lectures and Labs—On Monday, Mauricio de Oliveria intro-duced us to the concept of tensegrity and its practical applica-

tions in bioengineering and modeling the dynamic behavior of complex systems. Students built both simple and complex tensegrity models using sticks and strings. These floating geo-metric forms use compression and tension to stabilize them-selves. By building these models we can test the structural integrity of these shapes and developing a better understand-ing of behaviors at the micro and macro level. On Wednesday, Paul our TA gave an Introduction to Material Science 101. He also discussed his work with NASA on the Superball Pro-ject. Paul reviewed Hookes Law, calculating tension and stiff-ness of materials as well as Young’s Modulus. Students tested these concepts in our afternoon lab. Illumina—Illumina is a global company specializing in the anal-ysis of genetic variation and gene function through high throughput sequencing. They are fueling groundbreaking ad-vancements in life science research, clinical translational, con-sumer genomics, and molecular diagnostics. On Tuesday afternoon, we took a tour of whole genome sequencers and DNA synthesizers at Illumina which was an amazing experience bordering on science fiction. State of the art labs, liquid han-dling robots and rapid prototyping of microfluidic glass slides. Later, we attended a career opportunities panel where Illumi-na employees working in Genetic Counseling, Industrial Hy-giene, Applied Mathematics, Validation Engineering, Technical Support for Instrumentation and even the VP of Acquisitions and Mergers discussed their career journeys. All in all, an intense week for Cluster 7!! Tune in next week.

10


As we wind down our final week of COSMOS the sentiment is bitter-sweet. We have

been working hard on our projects and are excited to share them with parents and family this Saturday! We are sad at the prospect of saying good-bye to the many friends that we’ve made this summer. We’ve all learned a lot and are certain you’ll be amazed this weekend!!! The end of last week found us learning about “ tensegrity" to model physical and biological systems. On, Monday, Paul gave a fascinating talk on Duct Climbing Tetrahedral Tensegrity robots (DUCTT) and advancements in robotics using non-linear dynamics modeled

from nature. He discussed his work with NASA building the braking systems for the Superball and shared his academic journey as an undergraduate at UCSD as well as career advice for those interested in research. In lab, students used short python scripts to control motors remotely and learned the essentials of PLM (pulse-width modulation) and “open loop controls.” Students were able to modulate the voltage output of the motors and graph the relationships in Py-thon. These skills are essential for understanding how to control machines with small scripts. Tuesdays Discovery Lecture: Through the Nanoscale Looking Glass by Andrea Tao gave us insight into the dy-namics of the nano-world. From the bio-physics of geko hands to designing nano-structures that emit varying frequen-cies of light due to surface plasmon resonance…the talk had something interesting for everyone. Wednesday found us and working on our Final Project Presentation and building models in class. We did some peer critiques of our presenta-tions to refine our proposals. Today we’re off to Birch Aquarium for some well deserved R&R before our final presenta-tions tomorrow! Wish us luck and we’ll see you Saturday!!

cluster 7: bioengineering/mechanical...

Documents