Knowledgeable Panda

A quirky biomedical engineer blogging about life and research. Biology: Developmental, Physiology, and diseases; Biomedical Engineering: Tissue Engineering; Basic science; and of course rants of daily life and what I find interesting and inspirational.

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Method of the Year 2009: iPS cells (by NatureVideoChannel)

Of course new research shows the possibilities of cancerous cells.

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One foot in the past (by NatureVideoChannel)

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RNA interference (RNAi): by Nature Video (by NatureVideoChannel)

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Paralysed woman moves robot with her mind - by Nature Video (by NatureVideoChannel)

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"Not long ago, the story was simple. A vanguard of modern humans left their African birthplace 50,000–60,000 years ago and quickly conquered Asia. They turned left into Europe some 40,000 years ago, later crossing the Bering Strait and marching southward into the Americas. With their advance, Neanderthals and other earlier peoples dwindled and vanished." ...

"The most dramatic change, however, concerns the archaic peoples whose world we inherited. In the past two years, ancient-DNA researchers have deciphered the full genome sequences of Neanderthals and a hitherto unknown group called Denisovans, then compared them with modern human genomes. The startling upshot: genetic traces of our vanished cousins live on in people today (see page 33). Just where and how the ancient trysts took place is yet to be revealed, as researchers continue to unravel the human story."

From nature.com

Step by step around the globe

02 May 2012

Human migrations: Eastern odyssey

02 May 2012

Evolution: What makes a modern human

02 May 2012

Ancient migration: Coming to America

02 May 2012

Young Americans

02 May 2012

Human evolution: Cultural roots

15 February 2012

African cave's ancient ochre lab

13 October 2011

Early human migration written in stone tools

27 January 2011

Source: Special issue: Peopling the planet : Nature News & Comment Nature 485, 23 ( 2012)

[doctorswithoutborders]

MSF health workers are seeing a 250 percent increase in the number of patients with malaria over the last three years in Democratic Republic of Congo and are now responding to outbreaks in six provinces.

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I finally turned 24.

It's been 2 days since I turned 24. With new job (hopefully) on the horizon, life seems well enough as it is. The most eventful week has past. 

A car accident to heart break to making up and healing back and second chances. Then 4 wisdom teeth removal with little pain thanks to Vicodin. Then my uneventful 24th birthday. Now...

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I'm sure that will suffice. Thank you so much! :D I'm going to need your name and the name of the lab you work in, though. OKAY! Question 1: How/why did you get into this field? 2: How long have you been doing this kind of work? 3: Describe your typical workday. 4: What do you like the best about this job? 5: What do you like least about your job? 6: Would you recommend this career choice to a young person (~18 years old)? 7: How much programming knowledge is needed in biomedical engineering?

My name is Jeff Lin. I work in Wu Lab at Neurobiology and Behavioral Science. 

1) I was inspired by the knee transplant that my grandmother had to get.

2) I have been working in research labs for the last 3 years, while I am also undergraduates.

3) I read, review, and understand articles. I write/edit programming codes. I ran the codes for analysis. I ran experiments and record the data. Then use those data for analysis using the codes.

4) I like this job because I get to conduct research on what I like to learn.

5) The labs are always kept so cold. After lunch, I feel like I am living in an igloo.

6) I would recommended this career choice to a young person who enjoys not only research, but also like medical science and technology.

7) In Biomedical Engineering, programming knowledge is needed, but one course and experience should be enough. Every other course in BME will use that knowledge to help you to be a experienced programmer.

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"Our laboratory has developed a fabrication system for functional 3D tissues by stacking cell sheets of confluent cultured cells detached from a temperature-responsive culture dish. Here we describe the protocols for the fabrication of 3D tissues by cell sheet engineering."

Source: Yuji Haraguchi, et al. Fabrication of functional three-dimensional tissues by stacking cell sheets in vitro.  Nature Protocols 7 , 850–858 (2012).

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Vitamin E: good for the heart, bad for the bones?

"2005 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in nine adults takes more than 267 mg per day of vitamin E, even though the daily recommended dose is only 15 mg per day." ...

"Finally, the authors found that rats or mice fed α-tocopherol for eight weeks at doses that are present in the vitamin E supplements used by many people showed a 20% decrease in bone mass and had increased bone resorption and osteoclast size." ...

"Should people, especially those at risk for osteoporosis, continue to take vitamin E supplements based on these current results? Will the benefits of vitamin E on cardiovascular health outweigh the risks for bone metabolism that the authors associated with high vitamin E intake? Given the previous studies that have suggested that vitamin E can influence bone formation and bone resorption, only carefully conducted clinical trials in humans will be able to resolve these questions." 

Source: G. D. Roodman, Vitamin E: Good for the heart, bad for the bones? Nat. Med. 18, 491–492 (2012).

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Waiting around...

after applying for over 25 jobs and not hearing back from them, I think it would be best that I wait another month before I apply for another position in labs. I am going to turn 24, so that means I am getting old and ancient. LOL. I have to get my act together.

Hopefully the application for MS-leading-to-PhD opens up soon, so I can be sure to get into to Columbia U and start preparing for my thesis. From my calculation, the application will open in mid-June or early July since due date is Oct 1st.

My current lab position will be moving to another university soon. Wonder when and where to. I know the possibilities are Cornell U in Ithica, NY and George Washington U in Washington, DC. Only time will tell.

Time. Timing seems to be everything. So at the right time, my future will be all set and fall into place.

Here’s hoping.