18th Annual UC Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium hosted by the UCLA Department of Bioengineering

The entire conference took place at the newly constructed UCLA Luskin Conference Center from June 28-30, 2017, and the beautiful and professional venue provided an atmosphere that rivaled that of national biomedical engineering conferences. The theme for this year’s symposium was “Translating Discovery into Health Technologies”.

The UC campuses provide a rich environment for bioengineering research, and due to the breadth and depth of the cutting-edge research taking place across the 10 UC campuses, this year’s symposium covered a variety of areas and included the following six scientific tracks:  (1) Stem Cell, Biomaterials, and Regenerative Medicine, (2) Biomedical Devices and Global Health, (3) Imaging, (4) Drug Delivery and Immunoengineering, (5) Systems Biology, Computational Biology, and Bioinformatics, and (6) Synthetic Biology and Genetic Engineering.

There was at least one podium session per track, and 10 assistant professors across 9 of the UC campuses gave a 30-minute presentation as part of the podium sessions. In addition to these oral presentations, there were 3 poster sessions that were preceded by rapid fire talks from select poster presenters.  It should be noted that this year’s symposium had a very large number of podium and rapid fire talks as one of the goals was to provide a unique opportunity for graduate and undergraduate students to orally present their work in a nurturing environment.  Diversity travel awards were also given to students along with awards for podium, rapid fire talk, and poster presenters.

We would like to give special thanks to the plenary speakers who each gave a fantastic talk about their work. Professor Owen Witte (University Professor, UCLA) presented his stem cell research, while Professor Darrell Irvine (Professor, MIT) discussed his immunoengineering work.  Dr. Linda Narhi (Scientific Executive Director, Amgen) provided an important industrial perspective, and Milan Yager (Executive Director, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering) inspired the faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students to play a role in affecting public policy.

The social events included a Welcome Reception and a Gala Dinner.  Both events provided a break from the science and created a bustling hub for friends and colleagues to meet and eat. The Gala Dinner was the main social event and featured the World-Class Los Angeles Magician & Mentalist, Lou Serrano who provided entertainment that went beyond everyone’s expectations. Some of the attendees immediately asked how they may book him for future events, and if you are interested in doing so, please click on the link below.

https://www.louserrano.com/

The symposium was a huge success with stimulating presentations, in-depth scientific discussions, delicious food, and a fantastic magic show.  Thank you to everyone who attended and helped to make this symposium a memorable one.