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Sunday, May 18, 2008

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Gene Center Presentations

Presentations with slides and voice synchronized

	Frontiers of Nanotechnology and Biotechnology: Integration and Invention
	Nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter on a nanometer length scale to create new properties, has attracted tremendous attention among researchers in a variety of disciplines. The interface between nanotechnology and biology provides some of the most exciting opportunities in research today, including new ways to detect and diagnose disease, new ways to deliver therapy, and new ways to probe basic biological processes. On January 18, 2008, an array of stimulating speakers and members of Hunter College and the surrounding community convened to discuss opportunities at this interface, at the 21st Annual International Symposium of the college's Center for Study of Gene Structure and Function
	Evolution, Health and Disease
	This wide-ranging symposium illuminated the exciting advances being made at the intersection between medicine and evolution, both of people and of pathogens. Still, these same opportunities for scientific research into diseases demonstrate how much remains to be done in eliminating or controlling them. 20th Annual International Symposium of the college's Center for Study of Gene Structure and Function
	Ethnic Minorities in China: Science and Public Health Issues, by Lisa Wang, MD, PhD

	Minorities, Race, and Health Inequities in Medicine
	Conference organizers took a wide view of the term "minorities," and the discussion spanned everything from the racially profiled drug BiDil to the genetics of homosexuality. Some common themes emerged from these diverse research projects, though, including an enduring division between biological and social scientists on the potential of genomics. While many biologists tend to view the progress of genomics as an unmitigated boon, social scientists remain wary of the new field's potential for misuse.
	Africa's Green Revolution: An Update on the UN Millenium Program
	If you think about the environmental movement in the United States in the sixties and seventies, certain images probably come to mind: hippies, DDT, recycling, organic food, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, tofu. You probably would not think of hunger, education, gender equality, HIV/AIDS, malaria, sanitation, sewage recycling, firewood, technology, or road and market construction. But if necessity is the mother of invention, then these are the parts that are necessary to invent an African Green Revolution that supports the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halve the number of hungry and malnourished people in Africa by 2015. At the heart of the Green Revolution is the idea that, using existing science and technology, agriculture can become the engine for Africa's economic growth.
	Quest for Excellence: Preparing Minority Students for Professions in Science, Technology, and Health
	The 18th annual Archie Louis Lacey Memorial Award was presented to Michael Molina and Henry Teoh�energetic directors of New York State's Science and Technology Entry Programs. STEP and CSTEP programs currently serve 9000 minority middle school, high school, and college students in order to help increase minority representation in the sciences. They are state-funded programs with widespread support and proven results. STEP has served 100,000 high school students in its 19-year history; CSTEP has served 67000 college students over 18 years. The programs provide minority students with academic enrichment, encouragement, and support that wouldn't otherwise exist.
	Chemical Biology: Intervention in Cells based on Chemical Principle
	The nascent field of chemical biology employs small molecules to study the biology of disease. Scientists are using the methods of chemical biology to understand the principles that underlie cell activity, and, ultimately, to develop new pharmaceuticals and therapies.
	NMI Focus: Linking People, Processes, and Tools
	NMI-sponsored career workshops, or a yearly rotating lectures series, are just two possible ways to build formalized support and awareness of the issues facing minorities in the sciences. Focus group participants suggested, for example, that a lecture series, held at different universities throughout the area, could showcase the work of leading minority scientists and/or address topics of interest to minority communities, such as disparities in health care, cultural differences within minority communities (i.e., Trinidadian vs. African American attitudes towards education), special considerations for male and female minority populations, or inconsistency in diversity requirements between NIH and NSF funding grants. Career-related workshops and fairs sponsored by other Academy programs�such as WIN and Science Alliance�could also be modified to address issues faced by minority scientists.
	Tenure Track Tactics: Landing the Career Job
	Eighty percent of newly minted PhDs will desire a tenure-track faculty position, but only 20% will actually get that coveted career job. To get a leg up on the competition, more than 200 young scientists crowded into the Rockefeller Research Laboratories Auditorium at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) to engage in an interactive panel discussion with faculty from MSKCC and New Jersey City University (NJCU).
	Mastering your Visa: A Guide for Foreign Nationals Living and Working in the U.S.
	New York City is famous for its cosmopolitan mixture of people from all corners of the world. And science and the academic professions are no exceptions to this rule. Some 52,000 international students and scholars live in the New York metro area. According to Erika Rohrbach, an international student advisor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY, that makes New York the city most densely populated with foreign scholars in the entire United States. Many of these scholars are scientists, and many of those wish to navigate the difficult waters between training and working in the United States, and also perhaps to cross and recross its borders to attend international conferences. All of this requires a firm understanding of the visa process that allows them to enter and remain in the United States.
	Bright Idea Seeks Funding: Research Support for the Early Career Scientist
	In a fiscal climate of flattened funding budgets at the National Institutes of Health and other grantmaking agencies, winning new research support is tougher than ever. To help early-career scientists make the cut, a panel of five grantsmanship experts including a science editor, public and private grant makers, and two experienced grant writers convened at Columbia University on January 11, 2006 in a symposium cosponsored by the Academy's Science Alliance. There, they discussed ways for career scientists to obtain needed research money from a wide range of public and private funders, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the American Cancer Society (ACS).
	Hammers for Glass Ceilings: Practical Career Advice for Minority & Women Investigators
	One hundred years ago, scientific careers barely existed for women and minorities. Public schools were segregated, the world's entire population of female principal investigators would not have filled a classroom, and the brilliant chemist George Washington Carver was a relatively new hire at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes. Integration was excruciatingly slow, with setbacks often offsetting gains. By 1932, optimists could have pointed to Carver, a world-renowned inventor receiving six-figure job offers from white-dominated industries, as an example of minority success in science. But the same year, the U.S. Public Health Service funded the first grant for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. That appallingly racist project did not end until 1972.

			The Gene Center is supported by the Research Centers in Minority Institutions Program of the Division of Research Infrastructure of the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health. Grant Number G12 RR-03037
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