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 09/29: Justin Bois (option rep): Overview of the option
Th 10/05: Steve Mayo: Protein design automation (Note that this is on Thursday.)
F 10/13: Bruce Hay: Modifying genomes, from individual cells to whole organisms to whole populations
F 10/20: Smruthi Karthikeyan: Engineering microbiomes for environmental and human health
F 10/27: Wei Gao: Versatile bioelectronic devices for fundamental and applied biomedical studies
F 11/03: Matt Thomson: Explaining, predicting, and programing biological systems
F 11/10: Kaihang Wang: Synthetic genomes, life forms, and functions
F 11/17: Niles Pierce: Programming dynamic molecular function in a biological context
F 11/24: No class, Thanksgiving holiday
F 12/01: Gözde Demirer: Nano and biotechnology for plant genetic engineering