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Tag Archives: education

2018-01-12 new articles we read this week

Genome-editing Niewoehner O, Garcia-Doval C, Rostøl JT, Berk C, Schwede F, Bigler L, Hall J, Marraffini LA, Jinek M. Type III CRISPR-Cas systems produce cyclic oligoadenylate second messengers. Nature. 2017 Aug 31;548(7669):543-548. doi:10.1038/nature23467. Epub 2017 Jul 19. PubMed PMID: 28722012. Johnson K, Bailey S. Microbiology: The case of the mysterious messenger. Nature. 2017 Aug 31;548(7669):527-528. […]

2014-06-21 new articles we read this week

Stem cells/ regenerative medicine Zhong X, Gutierrez C, Xue T, Hampton C, Vergara MN, Cao LH, Peters A, Park TS, Zambidis ET, Meyer JS, Gamm DM, Yau KW, Canto-Soler MV. Generation of three-dimensional retinal tissue with functional photoreceptors from human iPSCs. Nat Commun. 2014 Jun 10;5:4047. doi: 10.1038/ncomms5047. PubMed PMID: 24915161. Reichman S, Terray A, […]

My trip to Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA.

Lipid synthesis, stem cells, CRISPR, cell differentiation, coffee, faculty life in Puerto Rico, softball, ion channels, PhD in Europe, ball room dancing, buying a house in seattle, Epilepsy, larval Drosophila brain dissection – that’s an eclectic mix of topics to talk about for one day and this is not even an exhaustive list! These topics […]

My visit to Ho Yu College in Hong Kong

I visited Ho Yu College in Hong Kong last month. A good mentor Dr. William Mak has been running a great biotechnology education program for the primary and secondary school students, as well as the public there. See an old post about their outreach program in which they fit a whole research lab into custom-built […]

Has education destroyed our creativity?

Recently I have got the privilege to share my research work with secondary school students. During the talk, it was obvious to me  that the younger the students were, the more imaginative the questions that they could come up with and the more fearless they were in asking questions. One reason is that the eduction […]

A collection of videos for discussion of ethical and social issues in developmental biology – Stem cells: II. Desperate patients and people who want to take advantage of their situation

In my last post, I provided several links to general introductions of stem cells. In this post, I will share several documentaries that show how bad people are taking advantage of desperate patients who have heard stem cells therapy may give them a last hope. II. Desperate patients and people who take advantage of their […]

A collection of videos for discussion of ethical and social issues in developmental biology – Stem cells: I. Introduction to the topic

Over the years, I have been leading a discussion about the ethical and social issues of stem cells research in my class and have used a few useful videos on various aspects. You may find them useful too. I. Introduction to the topic “A Stem Cell Story” – a great introduction of human embryonic stem […]

2012-01-14 new articles we read this week

Retinal Development Kwan KM, Otsuna H, Kidokoro H, Carney KR, Saijoh Y, Chien CB. A complex choreography of cell movements shapes the vertebrate eye. Development. 2012 Jan;139(2):359-72. PubMed PMID: 22186726. Morgan JL, Soto F, Wong RO, Kerschensteiner D. Development of cell type-specific connectivity patterns of converging excitatory axons in the retina. Neuron. 2011 Sep 22;71(6):1014-21. […]

From an insightful article about kids and eduation

I have just received this article, “How America Messed Up Its Kids… And How We Can Fix Them“, from a fellow professor in the department. Here is an except of it: Teenager: “Please, Mom and Dad, just let me do this, and I promise that I will take full responsibility for it.” Parent: “Do you […]

Biotechnology Mobile Laboratory Education Program in Hong Kong

Dr. William Mak, a good friend and a great role model, has been devoting his career to improving the biotechnology education for primary and secondary students and teachers over the years. He has established the Hong Kong Biotechnology Education Resource center with Sik Sik Yuen Ho Yu College and built a university-level research laboratory to […]