BE 1 provides an overview of bioengineering research and undergraduate coursework at Caltech with weekly lectures by faculty. We meet Fridays at noon in Kerckhoff 119 with a different speaker each week talking about a variety of topics in bioengineering. Students are encouraged to ask lots of questions during and after the talks!

Note that this class features only a sampling of some of the bioengineering research on campus. You can read more about all of the interesting research on campus on the BBE Division webpage.

We will have an attendance sheet at the door. In order to pass the class, students may miss a maximum of two lectures (with obvious exceptions due to illness or personal matters; contact Justin Bois for approval of excused absences).

Lecture schedule

F 10/01: Justin Bois (option rep): Overview of the option
F 10/11: Wei Gao: Versatile bioelectronic devices for fundamental and applied biomedical studies
F 10/18: Zhen Chen: Structural cell biology of reproduction
F 10/25: Lulu Qian: Molecular programming with synthetic nucleic acid systems
F 11/01: Trevor Nolan: Unveiling cellular choreography: The transition from proliferation to differentiation in roots
F 11/08: Michael Dickinson: The neural and biomechanical basis of behavior in the fruit fly
F 11/15: Lior Pachter: Computational and experimental methods for genomics
F 11/22: Sujit Datta: Dynamics and self-organization of living systems
F 11/29: No class, Thanksgiving holiday
F 12/06: Richard Murray: Feedback and control to networked biological systems