Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory/Las Positas College Science and Engineering Seminar to Explore Microbes and the Race to Diagnose Pathogens

The seminar, “Microbes Gone Wild - The Race to Diagnose Pathogens,” is the second seminar of the second season of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)/Las Positas College Science and Engineering Seminar Series. The seminar will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 6-7:15 p.m. in the Multi-Disciplinary Building 2400, Room 2420. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is $2.

The seminar will be presented by two LLNL experts: Holly Franz, Ph.D., Biomedical Scientist, Deputy Program Director for Biosecurity, Office of Strategic Outcomes; and Reg Beer, Ph.D., Mechanical Engineer, Principal Investigator and Associate Program Leader, National Security Engineering Division, Center for Micro  and Nanotechnologies. The seminar is part of a series, “Theory to Practice:  How Science Gets Done,” launched last year.

“The series is designed to enhance the partnership shared by the two Livermore institutions and provides a forum for laboratory scientists and engineers to share their broad range of basic and applied research with the college’s scientific community of students, staff and faculty,” said Dean of Math, Science, Engineering and Public Safety Neal Ely, Ph.D.

“The series offers a way to look at how science is done,” added Biology Instructor Nan Ho. “A unique feature of the series, especially for a community college, is the focus on the ‘big science’ that LLNL does that requires cross-disciplinary expertise.”

The presentations are interdisciplinary in nature and focus on how science is applied to solve problems from theory to practice, she said.  The seminar will run about 45 minutes, with another 30 minutes allocated for questions and answers.

The abstract for the Nov. 8 seminar is as follows: “Protecting public health from the next pandemic or ensuring that you get the best care possible in the Emergency Room or other clinical setting requires fast and accurate diagnosis of infectious disease. Effective detection technologies must be fast, sensitive, and specific to the precise cause of the patient’s sickness.  LLNL is working towards extremely rapid medical diagnostics that determine the exact bacteria or virus causing infection by recognizing the organism’s nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) fingerprint.  We will discuss trends and specific technologies to meet this critical need in a much faster time than previously possible.”