Dec. 2 Cafe – Building the future with biology

East Bay Science Cafe

synberc presents:

Building the future with biology: A conversation about synthetic biology

Wednesday, Dec 2, 2015

6:30-9pm

Cafe Valparaiso 1403 Solano Ave. Albany, California 94706

The emerging field of synthetic biology builds biotechnologies to meet societal challenges in areas like healthcare, energy, agriculture and the environment. By making biology easier to engineer, the field also connects to human values around science and technology. This Conversations about Synthetic Biology event will bring diverse community members together with synthetic biologists to share knowledge, hopes and concerns about synthetic biology. We’d greatly welcome your views and perspectives.
The evening will have informal time for members of the public to mingle with synthetic biologists from the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (Synberc), and learn about synthetic biology through some materials from the Building With Biology project. The scientists will briefly provide their perspectives about the field and invite you to share your thoughts through informal conversation and small group discussions. We’ll also invite your ideas for how to improve and sustain this important conversation between scientists and the general public. The conversation will be moderated by Kevin Costa, Synberc Managing Director, and Shaila Kotadia, Synberc Education Outreach & Diversity Manager.
 synberc
Danielle Tullman-Ercek is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California Berkeley. Her research focuses on building protein-based devices for applications in bioenergy and drug delivery. She is particularly interested in engineering multi-protein complexes, such as the machines that transport proteins and small molecules across cellular membranes. She is a member of the Berkeley Synthetic Biology Institute and the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, and was received an NSF CAREER award for her work on the construction of bacterial organelles using protein membranes. Danielle Tullman-Ercek Danielle Tullman-Ercek
Nathan J. Hillson is the Director of Synthetic Biology Informatics, Fuels Synthesis and Technologies Divisions, at the Joint BioEnergy Institute. Hillson is also the Group Lead of Synthetic Biology Informatics at the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute; Computational Staff Scientist, Department Head of Biodesign, and Co-Deputy Division Director in the Biological Systems and Engineering Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Affiliate Investigator at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (Synberc); and co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at TeselaGen Biotechnologies. He holds a PhD in Biophysics from Harvard.
Nathaniel Hillson

Nathaniel Hillson

Dr. Alyssa Rosenbloom began her research career an undergraduate researcher under Dr. Sumana Datta at Texas A&M University before completing her doctorate in Molecular and Cell Biology with Dr. Carlos Bustamante at UC Berkeley, exploring the structure of mitochondrial fission rings with novel 2-color super-resolution microscopy.  She currently researchers the effect of dynamic signaling on neural stem cell fate determination as a NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. David Schaffer’s and Dr. Douglas Clark’s labs at UC Berkeley.  Alyssa enjoys teaching the Bioethics as part of the iCLEM summer research program, serves as a mentor for 3 undergraduate researchers, and serves as a Head Steward representative for UC Berkeley for UAW 5810.  She is also a member of the Thriving in Science board at UC Berkeley.  She states: “The driving force in all aspects of my life is curiosity.   I am constantly looking for new skills to learn, new knowledge to acquire, and new life experiences.”
Alyssa Roesnbloom

Alyssa Roesnbloom

Building-the-future-with-biology

Comments to “Dec. 2 Cafe – Building the future with biology

  1. Carole Lyons says:

    I attended this lecture and enjoyed it very much. Is there a transcript, video, or podcast of the presentation available online?

    • Katie bertsche says:

      Hello!
      Unfortunately we don’t have the resources at this time to record our cafe presentations, but you can find a lot of resources on synberc’s webpage: http://www.synberc.org/engagement

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