Events: October 2010

Wyss Institute Founding Director Don Ingber will discuss mechanical control of vascular development and function as part of the Vascular Biology Seminar Series.

Bio-inspired smart materials should be a "live" material with various functions like organism in nature, they must have three essential elements as sense, drive and control. Lei Jiang's recent studies are focused on the design and fabrication of bio-inspired surfaces with special wettability based on these ideas.

Wyss invited lecturer J. Scott Turner frm SUNY-ESF will explore the complexity of termite mound structures and their applications to opening the window on a new generation of termite-inspired devices for capturing wind and using it to manage the internal climate of buildings. 

Harvard SEAS Electrical Engineering Seminar Series invited lecturer Mandyam Srinivasan from the University of Queensland will describe how flying insects use their vision to stablize and control their flight, and to navigate food sources. He will demonstrate how some insect-based strategies are being used to design, implement and test biologically-inspired algorithims for the guidance of autonomous terrestrial and aerial vehicles.

Wyss invited lecturer Geoff Duyk from TPG BioTech has extensive experience in "bench to bedside" research, orphan diseases and the application of biotechnology to problems of environmental conservation and sustainability.

Invited lecturer, Sang Yup Lee  from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) will present the general strategies for systems metabolic engineering, which will be accompanied by several examples including production of chemicals and materials including recombinant spider silk proteins, renewable polyesters, and various monomers for polymers.