Free lunch?
There's a running joke on campus that if you try hard enough, you can eat lunch all week by going to seminars.
That's true this week. And if you've been doing it, you heard some amazing speakers!
Last Friday, Michael Hopkins from the University of Chicago talked about building artificial photosynthesis systems from inorganic materials.
On Monday, Jacob Hale from Purdue University spoke on "Molecular Motion: Interpreting the Dance." His talk highlighted molecular motion of single proteins in a membrane using both experimental data and modeling techniques to refine our understanding of how membranes "work."
Today, Martin Gruebele from the University of Illinois gave a talk entitled "How molecules resemble spacecraft, and how proteins fold in cells." The leap from transition states of simple molecules to protein folding may seem like a huge one, but Dr. Gruebele's analogy of using the gravitational force of planets to minimize the energy needed to take a longer but more efficient route made it all fit together.
And on Thursday, Jeffery Elmendorf from the Indiana University School of Medicine will be talking about "Membrane cholesterol and the Road to Diabetes Type 2." I don't know what's on the lunch menu, but there may be some irony if we're eating pizza and drinking soda during this one!
We are privileged to be able to host such a list of quality speakers. It brings depth and relevance to what we teach in class, and helps all of us keep up with cutting edge research.
What's amazing is that these are just the science talks that happened this week. It doesn't include the African Art Exhibit and associated talks, the Multicultural Festival events, an Ancient Greek sculpture and culture, or Moot Court Finals.
So Wednesday is the only day you're on your own for lunch. Use it wisely!
Tuesday the Chemistry of Cancer class donned disposable white lab coats and safety glasses in their visit to Endocyte, a start-up chemotherapy targeting company in West Lafayette, IN. The visit was the culmination of seven weeks of learning about DNA mutation, signal transduction, cell cycle, and apoptosis…and where these processes go wrong in cancer cells. This involved integrating topics from biochemistry, cell biology, organic chemistry, and physiology.