Pioneering Biological Discovery

Each year the BCSO organizes a student-host seminar series named “Pioneering Biological Discovery”. This seminar series is one of the traditional highlights of BCSO. It is organized by the student body, where we invite investigators who are not only leading the frontiers of science, but who are also great teachers and dynamic speakers. The students are in charge of organizing the entire seminar including the itinerary, lunch and dinner meetings, announcements, reception, housing and flight. This an unique opportunity for us to develop organizational skills and to establish professional contacts with highly renowned scientist.

The first "Pioneering Biological Discovery" seminar started in 2003 with Dr. William DeGrado from the University of Pennsylvania. Our second speaker was Dr. Jeffrey Kelly from the Scripps Research Institute followed by Dr. George Vande Woude from the Van Andel Research Institute in 2005. Our speaker in 2006 was Dr. Rama Ranganathan from the UT Southwestern Medical School while in 2007, our distinguished speaker was Dr. Isaiah Fidler from the UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

In the spring of 2009 we invited Dr. Peter Schultz from the Scripps Research Institute while our guest in the fall of the same year was Dr. Wayne Fairbrother from Genentech. In 2010 we had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Peter Wright from Scripps Research Institute. 2011 was a particularly busy and successful year for us with as many as three distinguished speakers visiting our campus - Dr. Sankar Ghosh from Columbia University, Dr. Klaus Hahn from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Dr. Dorothee Kern from Brandeis University. We are pleased to announce that we will have the opportunity to hear from Dr. Enrico DiCera from St. Louis University on Nov 14th 2011. Please keep checking our website for furtehr announcements.

With the help of the Graduate Program and the Department, the "Pioneering Biological Discovery" seminar series have been extremely successful in both organization and attendance over the years. Furthermore, it has been a great way for our students to interact closely with top scientists and to impress our invited speakers.