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Hey bobcats, my name is Andrea Cho, I'm a student assistant
at the Students First Center. Today I'll be interviewing members of the
research facilities at STEM cell research and also the biological sciences.
Lets Go!
Hey bobcats, today I have the pleassure of interviewing Anand Gadre the director of the
STEM cell instrumentation foundry.
My first question would be, How do you explain the broader significance to an education lay
person?
Um, my main areas of research are in biotechnology, material science, stem cell biology and nano
technologies. Out of these areas biotechnology and material
science are a well established areas compared to stem cell biology and nano technologies.
To me nano technologies are kind of a horizontal sector of technologies that would include
information technology, energy technology, medical technology, and so on.
So it is a fairly new field of science and engineering that focuses on studying very
very small things. In other words nano technologies are materials
and are devices that are less than 100 nanometers in size.
That is about the size of a virus. They hold a lot of economical potential if
you combine the stem cell biology with nano technology, there are endless opportunities
and my main goal is to explore these technologies and implementing them to practical applications.
Thats what I plan to pursue my research in.
Awesome! Ok, the next question is, what is the big picture of your research and how will
it change the world?
Ok well, like I said nanotechnologies and stem cell biology applications are enormous.
There are endless opportunities there. I got involved in nanotechnologies and was
fascinated by its multiplicity in nature and also impressed by how well communicative the
implications are to a wide audience. Nanotechnologies matters because known materials
begin to build up odd properties at that nano scale and at that scale of atoms and molecules
there are properties that are not often evident, can be engineered.
To me, the big picture is the combination neurotechnologies which is a combination of
nanotechnologies, stem cell biologies together and putting them towards focused applications
is very important. I strongly believe that the combination of
these new technologies will bring smarter, faster and next generation devices and products
while improving the existing ones to the market.
Amazing! So how should an undergraduate student reach out to a professors in order to gain
research experience?
Undergraduates should mainly concentrate on the first thing. Which is they should know
what area of research they want to focus on. They should be proactive in what they want
to be after they graduate whether they want to be a medical doctor or join graduate school
to get into a PhD program that they have in mind. They should know that as early as possible.
So they can start planning their future career. Getting in touch with professors, supervisors
definitely helps because they get proper advice from their professors and supervisors.
That guidance helps them get to their career oriented goals.
By which ever possible means, on site, off site and get in touch with supervisors and
start a dialog with them and what ever their plans and goals. From their on they should
start getting more involvement and getting on different instruments or analytic equipments
for their future career.
What are some of the other exciting research topics that you have heard about through your
academic peers?
As a graduate student I worked mainly in the area of polymer science or material science.
For my education, i got my degree in physics and material instrumentation and now i'm working
in stem cell biology. This fascinates me a lot and their are endless
opportunities. While I was a student I was more focused or
attracted towards medicine. Medicine is a combination of science and engineering
that will help improve medicine of the world. This could be considered basic biology, device
designing, we all need these factors in order to get sophisticated medical devices.
Besides medicine, material science, I was also interested in robotics, it was just that
I did not get a chance to look at all of those fields.
But it really has been an amazing experience since these industries are involving so quickly.
What are the types of research complications that your department has faced and how did
you over come it?
Stem cell instrumentation foundry is a co research facility at UC Merced and fortunately
we have had very minor complications that we came across.
The main complication that I would say is that lets say one of our users a particular
piece of equipment and its not working, thats something we do not want to see.
How to work on that problem we have dedicated technicians and experienced staff members
that keep the equipment functional 24-7. As long as we know all of the instrumentation
in the facility is working up to date and we do routine assessment and routine maintenance,
that will help us with preventing those complications. Like I said, as long as we know how to maintain
the equipment and provide best customer service.
Great, through the experiences working with UC Merced students what has been the most
memorable moment in your study? That is kind of difficult to say but i have
had many memorable moments. Speaking about UC Merced students we have
a lot of student volunteers that work in our lab and a lot of users from undergraduate
students to graduate students, post doc researches, staff members working in our lab.
So the most memorable moment I would say would be,
when we train our undergraduates, junior undergraduate students and we see them, they are doing hands
down work independently and confidently. That gives me pleasure to see that they are
really trying to achieve something or they want to do in their life.
When they specifically mention in their personal statements when they apply to grad students,
I got the opportunity to work in this stem cell instrumentation foundry and I got training
and work experience was amazing. I got training on so many different equipment
and it is instantly helping me to achieve my goals.
When we read that statement or those words its one of the most memorable moments I would
say.
Thank you so much for your time for the interview.