We asked our Scientists to ditch the powerpoint for this one and share the love of science in a fun and unique format — Speed Dating with Scientists!
5 scientists will bring their expertise to your dinner table. You get to sit back and enjoy the science they share with you.
Each scientist gets 10mins to demonstrate their work to your group. After 10mins, a new scientist takes their place and also gets 10mins to talk about their work and it repeats. Much like "speed dating" but with Science!
On the science menu we have the science behind magic (magic tricks included), genetic discoveries made by 23andMe, the fascinating world of adaptive immunotherapy and more.
Disclaimer: no actual "dating" will take place. The only love will be for science.
Food and drink available for purchase
All ages welcome
$15 at the door
Dr Michal Tal
Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford
Yin and yang of immune cells that kill infected cells
After a grueling arms race exposed to the never ending onslaught of invaders, our immune system has developed techniques to ensure clearance of infected cells. We develop our own unique and highly specialized “adaptive” immune systems to fight infections.
These adaptive immune cells use certain "markers" to identify health cells from intruders. I will be discussing the "yin and yang" effects of immune cells killing infected cells by varying concentrations of these "markers".
Genetic Discoveries Powered by 23andMe
Millions of 23andMe customers have consented to participate in research and contributed more than a billion datapoints, making our cohort the largest research database of genotypic information in the world.
I will talk about 23andMe's unique research model and some of the genetic discoveries we have made by inviting customers to participate in research.
Dr Jennifer McCreight
Research Communications Scientist at 23andMe
Robert Strong
Comedy Magician
The Science of Deception
Robert Strong has been voted San Francisco's “Best Magician” three times. He has performed in over 40 countries, in all 50 states, on every major TV network, and twice at the White House.
Learn about the techniques that magicians exploit to trick your mind.
Designer cell therapies for type 1 diabetes
The immune system is usually seen as an army that defends us from infections and cancer. However, the immune system can go rogue and attack our own tissues, causing devastating diseases, such as Type I diabetes. What if we could use immune cells as living drugs to reeducate the patients’ immune system to cease fire? Regulatory T cells are the generals of the immune system, making sure that no immune response goes overboard. My goal is to design regulatory T cell therapies for type I diabetes.
Leonardo Ferreira
Molecular immunologist & human genome engineer at UCSF
Molecular dating and protein models
Our cells are packed with protein molecules constantly bumping into each other, and the tiniest upset to these molecular 'dates' usually spells trouble. As a computational structural biologist, I use computers to build 3D models of proteins and simulate how they move about in the cell and interact with one another. My predictions help me and others understand the way our cells work or how and why they misbehave.
João Rodrigues
Computational Structural Biologist, Stanford
I studied biochemistry in Portugal and fell in love with protein models in the Netherlands, where I did my PhD. I have been in the Bay Area since 2016, working at Stanford as a postdoc, where I continue researching proteins and their interactions.
Finished with your speed dating? Stay for some trivia!
How many elevators are in the city of Chicago?
How many insects are there in the world?
How much does the statue of David weigh?
These are the questions that plague no one, but are perfect questions for a night of quantitative trivia, and Fermi-style, order of magnitude estimation.
Enrico Fermi had a knack for quickly calculating things using back of the envelope calculations and no regard for a factor of 2. Test your ability to quickly answer strange questions using general knowledge and quick conversions!
Stanford Complexity Group
Stanford Complexity Group (SCG) is a student-led organization that promotes Complexity Science in the Bay Area. We also like Trivia. So we will host a quantitative trivia quiz, full of fun knowledge and Fermi estimation questions.