Guest Post by Michaela Tolman, Neuro, GSC President

Next week Tuesday night, over 50 people have already signed up for a first-ever event. Have you? 

Tufts Innovation Spotlight is bringing together 5 panelists who have brought innovation to the academic, clinical, and industry settings. Their achievements and wisdom will be celebrated with this classy event hosted by the Graduate Student Council at Abby Lane, which is right around the corner (literally a 6 minute walk).

The event will begin at 5pm with passed hors d’oeuvres on the upper floor of Abby Lane. The program will begin at 6pm with a panel discussion. There will be an opportunity for questions throughout as well as open networking from 7pm on. The goal of the event is to generate a discussion among students and panelists about the challenges they have faced bringing innovation to each of their respective fields and how they would advise our students as they strike out on their own careers.

Panelists –

Qiaobing Xu, PhD is an Assistant Professor at Tufts. He received his PhD from Harvard in Biochemistry, did a post doc at MIT, and now focuses on developing nanotechnology for the applications of drug delivery and tissue engineering. His lab has developed “lipidoids” for delivery of DNA, RNA, or protein for therapeutic applications. Their tissue engineering efforts have resulted in a scaffold built from decellurized tissue which is currently being used to guide tissue regeneration.

Richard T. Lee, MD is a Professor at Harvard University and Harvard Medical school, as well as an active clinician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, founder, and Chairman of the Board of ProteoThera, Inc. Dr. Lee received his medical degree from Cornell University and went on to study a broad range of medical issues. Their approach is to, “understand human problems and design solutions in the laboratory.”

Arnout Schepers, PhD is a post doc in the Bhatia Lab at MIT. He received his PhD from Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht in Hans Clevers laboratory. Previously, he has characterized intestinal stem cells in malignant conditions. Currently, he is working on making a 3D tissue model for cancer research.

Retsina Meyer, PhD is a senior scientist at Resilience Therapeutics. She received her PhD from MIT, where she won numerous fellowships and excelled in the entrepreneurial arena, winning the OneStart America’s competition. Resilience Therapeutics is currently developing a target for treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Luhan Yang, PhD is a Co-Founder of the biotech company, eGenesis. She received her PhD as well as a post doc position from Harvard. She was named on the list “30 under 30” in Forbes Magazine and helped develop the CRISPR/Cas9 system for use in mammalian cells.

We hope you join us on Tuesday, March 15th!