December 2004
The Center for Tissue Bioengineering at the Richmond Field Station received a visit from 53 high school girls and this December. Hosted by Professor Karen King, the young women participated in a tour, research demonstrations and a lively question and answer session at the Richmond Field Station CTBe facility.
The girls are members of MECCA: Making Electives Count for Career Achievement, a project to encourage more young women to pursue education and employment in science, math and technology. MECCA is sponsored by the Tri-Valley ROP, Dublin, Livermore, and Pleasanton School Districts, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and the Tri-Valley Educational Collaborative (TEC).
The tour of the CTBe laboratories included brief presentations of research and demonstrations of equipment including: electrophoresis, the study of proteins and genes; mechanical engineering, the study of the mechanical properties of biological tissues such as cartilage, bone, arteries; histology, the preparation of biological tissues for microscopic study; microscopy, the study of biological tissues using light microscopy and fluorescence microscopy, and the study of cell mobility with time-lapsed microscopy; and cell culture, the study of cell growth and metabolism in vitro.
Participating CTBe members included: Terry Johnson, Instructor, Department of Bioengineering; Ngan Huang, Leena Nakama, and Cheng Li, Ph.D. students from the Bioengineering Graduate Group; Pat Hamilton, Staff Research Associate, UCSF Department of Medicine; Kathy Kursa, Ph.D., alumna of the Bioengineering Graduate Group; Julia Chu, Staff Research Associate with the Department of Bioengineering; and Michelle Lee and David Brafman, undergraduate students in the Department of Bioengineering.