My Grand Mentor...

What an exciting day! I got to listen to J. Craig Venter give a seminar today on his exciting career and what he sees as the future of science. Dr. Venter is the founder of Celera and the brains behind the sequencing of the human genome. He also happens to be the mentor of my mentor, Mark Adams. This makes him my grand mentor! One of his many projects involves collecting genes from organisms around the world mostly from the Sorcerer II (below). Now the exciting part, with millions of genes in his collective database as his tools, he plans to build artificial organisms custom made to perform specific functions. One exciting application would be the production of biofuels. It's no wonder he was ranked by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World and one of the top 3 scientist of our time.
I'm so honored to be a part of his academic lineage. I hope that I can accomplish just a fraction of what he has already done! Todays talk was such an inspiration to work harder and believe that nothing is impossible. (From left to right: Gabrielle Nickel, Mark Adams, Craig Venter, Me)

Google Medical

Google has started a test pilot of medical record keeping in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic. This pilot study will involve 1,500 to 10,000 volunteers who have given Google the right to house their medical information to make it more readily available to them if they discontinue services at the Clinic. I personally would be very scared to have one centralized medical record keeper although I can understand the benefits as well. I think there needs to be some good ground rules set before anything like this goes to public use. I'm surprised that Google would take such a huge risk in taking on this project however, I can't think of a better company to do it!

The original article after the jump.

Having A Ball!

Josephine and I went to a fund raising ball for the Kidney Foundation of Ohio. The event was held at the Intercontinental Hotel next to the Cleveland Clinic. Josephine got two tickets from work. The tickets were $100-$2000 a head!! Being a black-tie event, we both had a good time getting dressed and figuring out what to wear. (Granted I had an easier time than Josephine!) The event raised over $140,000. The MC celebrity was Mark Nolan, a local weather forecaster for WKYC.

They were honoring Dr. Braun, a noted nephrologist who was a pioneer in kidney transplantations. What I got most out of the few speeches was that the most important achievement in his life even with all the patients lives that he touched, was his role as a family man. I've noticed this many times and the most successful PIs that I know, also are extremely family oriented. I am glad that I found a wonderful partner in life that I can see us starting a wonderful family of our own. OK, now back to work so that I can do my part!

Orlando Trip

amazing but a little freightening!!

DARPA Grand Challenge

Created in response to a Congressional and DoD mandate, DARPA Grand Challenge is a field test intended to accelerate research and development in autonomous ground vehicles that will help save American lives on the battlefield. The Grand Challenge brings together individuals and organizations from industry, the R&D community, government, the armed services, academia, students, backyard inventors, and automotive enthusiasts in the pursuit of a technological challenge.

The Grand Challenge 2005 was held on October 8, 2005 in the desert Southwest. The Stanford Racing Team won the $2 million prize with the winning time of 6 hours, 53 minutes. A total of five teams completed the Grand Challenge course which was 132 miles over desert terrain.