Fall 2025 Seminar Series
Wednesdays, 12:00 -1:00 PM
290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building
Join us for our next Bioengineering Department Special Seminar!
Wednesday, April 15, 12noon – 1:00pm
Stanley Hall, Room 177
“From Consumers of Content to Creative Collaborators: Reimagining the Student Experience in STEM at the Modern Research University”
Dr. Marc Facciotti
Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Genomics, UC Davis
Abstract:
How should research universities adapt in a world of increasingly abundant information, growing student diversity, rising public scrutiny over the value of higher education, and AI poised to fundamentally reshape how people learn and work? In this talk, Marc Facciotti presents a set of student-centered research and institutional design efforts aimed at reshaping STEM learning environments to better serve both students and the university. Drawing on collaborative work in large-enrollment STEM courses, educational technology, and the scaling of hands-on experiential learning programs, he explores how instructors and institutions can use technology and ingenuity to reimagine the undergraduate experience, reduce barriers to learning, and create pathways that help more students move from learning in STEM to contributing within it.
Join us for our next Bioengineering seminar:
Assessing Cardiac Function and Treatment Strategies from Development to the Pediatric Population
Stephanie Lindsey
UC San Diego
Wednesday, April 22
Noon – 1 p.m.
177 Stanley Hall
Abstract:
Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are among the most severe congenital abnormalities, accounting for over 29 percent of deaths from developmental abnormalities. Of these, approximately 25 percent require palliative surgery in the first year of life. While the precise origins of CHDs remain unknown, they arise from disturbances in cardiac morphogenesis, a complex interconnected process involving changing hemodynamic forces concomitant with cellular and molecular signaling. Despite advances in surgical and medical management, their potential to restore cardiac function remains compromised, largely due to continued complications from implanted devices. To that end, I explore innovative ways to advance treatment options for patients suffering from CHD, through the identification of new mechanistic insights into the origin of such defects and the optimization of current treatment options. To understand causation, I rely on the chick embryo as a mechanical model of development. Through the use of non-linear optics, I minimally invasively occlude flow inside the cardiac outflow tract and detail resulting structural and hemodynamic changes. I subsequently use numerical simulations to distinguish between the immediate effects of flow redistribution and longer-term compensation mechanisms. Towards optimization, I lay the groundwork for multiscale modeling of single ventricle physiology patients in the adult and pediatric populations and discuss implications on maternal-fetal health.
Join us for our next Bioengineering Spring 2026 Seminar:
Wednesday, April 29
Noon – 1:00pm
177 Stanley Hall
“MicroED solution to the lens MP20 enigma”
Dr. Tamir Gonen
Professor of Biological Chemistry and Physiology, David Geffen School of Medicine
University of California, Los Angeles
Abstract:
My laboratory studies the structures of membrane proteins that are important in maintaining cellular homeostasis. Understanding structure requires an atomic structural model of the protein of interest captured in various functional states. We developed the method Microcrystal Electron Diffraction (MicroED) and demonstrated that it is feasible to determine protein structures by electron diffraction using vanishingly small crystals. I will describe our efforts in the MicroED field and illustrate how this technique allows us to determine structures for novel proteins that were beyond the reach of other methods. I will use the small membrane protein MP20 from the eye lens as a case study and reveal an unexpected role for this protein as a tight junction protein.
Don't miss our annual Distinguished Lecture in Bioengineering and Rising Star Lecture.
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